Welgemeend August Art Month - 2019

12 Alexander Podlashuc was born in Pretoria in 1930 in a Russian emigrant family. His father Charles was an attorney and the general secretary for the South African Labour Party, a MP for his area and inspector of schools. Afrikaans was the dominant language in Pretoria at the time, and although Pod went to Pretoria Boys High, Afrikaans was his preferred tongue. Perhaps due to his dad’s position, he matriculated early and enrolled at UCT’s Michaelis Art School at 15. It was 1946 and the men were coming back from the war. As a little chap amongst all these hard boiled men, Pod ended up as the College House mascot, getting roped into all the shenanigans they got up to. Things did not go smoothly for the young man and he was expelled from Michaelis. The black sheep of the family, he headed for London, making his way by working as a dish washer and day labourer and going to classes at the Central School of Art. He thrived, it was the height of the jazz era, and he joined a swing band that made its way by Bedford truck across Southern Europe to Cannes in 1951 to celebrate Sydney Bechet’s wedding. Shortly thereafter, he won a Socialist Art Competition, where the first prize was a trip to Poland. The joke was lost on him. He was profoundly disturbed by what he saw there. The ruin, the bitter human legacy of the war, the violence simmering just under the surface, the crematoria dust of Auschwitz crushed any utopian dreams he may have had. He came back to England and worked for Punch magazine, doing portraits of many public figures of the time, Basil Liddel Hart, Arthur Koestler, Peter Ustinov, Clement Attlee, Aneurin Bevan and many others. The Liddell Harts took him in, and some of his most cherished memories were of his conversations with Basil. Certainly, the very pragmatic and technical military history he imbued there, filled the void left by romantic socialism. Perhaps too much so. When Malcolm Muggeridge took over Punch magazine in 1953, he observed, “Pod is not funny”, and fired him. Pod took off for Amsterdam, getting a job with Lilliput animation studio making cartoons. Unfortunately his European sojourn coincided with his eligibility for national service in the British army. As his older brother was killed in WW2, the family insisted he return home and avoid the draft. His only prospect was a job as court reporter and illustrator for The Friend Newspaper in Bloemfontein. He travelled with the high court train as it made its rounds of the lesser districts hearing capital cases. The overlap and bonhomie between prosecution and defence on the train, impressed upon him the class collusion of law. Watching capital crimes being sentenced, sometimes six at time, followed by the entire judicial cohort going out for a boozy lunch struck him. One day he saw an advert for a room to rent in Bloemfontein and went to view it. It was in the flat of a young Dutch woman, recently arrived in Bloemfontein. She was an artist too. And he spoke Dutch. Her name was Marianne Van Den Berg. Alexander and Marianne Podlashuc – a personal portrait