Strauss & co - September 2026 Highlights

that Laubser produced her portraits “without the model in view, drawing on her memory and insight in order to interpret more than mere physical appearance”.3 This aspect of her painting, its rootedness in the imagination as much as reality, formed the basis of an evocative passage in Johannes Meintjes’s 1944 monograph on Laubser: “To her, everything is a wealth of colour and design. This unassuming, solitary woman does not merely paint pictures; she lives them. They are created after prolonged study and countless sketches – repeated over and over until she truly knows her subject – and only then does she paint, away from the subject itself and from other people. Drawing upon her knowledge, intuition, and rich imagination – sometimes even a playful wit, yet always with deep empathy – she creates something that comes from with- in” (original in Afrikaans).4 Both Berman and Du Toit, who had planned to write a monograph on the artist before his untimely death in 1938, identified a note of melancholy in Laub- ser’s work. Berman suggested that her paintings were “as much a portrait of the artist as of the individual sitter”.5 Du Toit ventured a bolder cultural interpretation. Writing under an alias in Ons Vaderland , he identified the essential character of Afrikaner art as sober, reflective and melancholic, arguing that the leitmotif of paintings by Afrikaner artists such as Laubser was “essentially tragic”, characterised by “inherent pessimism and melancholia”.6 That Laubser resonated with Afrkaans-speaking audiences is well documented, both in the provenance of this work and beyond. This painting appeared as a backdrop in former president F W de Klerk’s posthumous video apology of 11 November 2021, in which he apologised without qualification for the pain, hurt, indignity and damage caused by apartheid. The appeal of Laubser’s portraits of farm folk and fishermen – natuurmense , as Meintjes put it 7 – is also evident in the recollections of the writer Hennie Aucamp. Writing in 2002 in an appreciation of opera singer Mimi Coertse, whose art collection while based in Vienna 8 included a Laubser, Aucamp recalled how, with money earned by his mother from the sale of eggs and cream, he acquired a Laubser painting of an old woman wearing a headscarf. 8 He observed that the affectionate Afrikaans expressions “Onse Maggie” and “Onse Mimi” could, despite their apparent affection and intimacy, also carry a patronising undertone. 9 The possibility of such cultural identification and debate owes much to Du Toit’s early enthusiasm for, and promotion of, Laubser. 1. Dalene Marais (1994) Maggie Laubser: Her Paintings, Drawings and Graphics , Cape Town: Per- skor, page 7. 2. Esmé Berman (1970) Art and Artists of South Africa , Cape Town: A A Balkema, page 175. 3. Ibid., page 175. 4. Johannes Meintjes (1944) Maggie Laubser , Cape Town: H A U M Jacques Dusseau & Co, page 16. 5. Berman, op.cit. page 175. 6. Quoted in Jeanne van Eeden (2008) ‘Collecting South African Art in the 1930s: The Role of Martin du Toit’, Historia 53.1, May. Page 167 7. Meintjes, op.cit. page 16. 8. Mimi Coertse (2007) ‘n Stem vir Suid-Afrika: My storie, soos vertel aan Ian Raper, Somerset West, Litera Publikasies , page 136. 9. Hennie Aucamp (2002) ‘Hoekom het jy teruggekom, Mimi?’, in Johan van Rooyen (ed) Mimi: ‘n Feesbundel, Pretoria: Protea Boekhuis, pages 23 – 25.