82 Maggie Laubser South African 1886–1973
Birds Against Seascape 1953 oil on board in the artist’s frame signed bottom right 40 x 50.5 cm
ZAR 400 000 – 600 000 USD 26 947 – 40 421 GBP 19 568 – 29 352 EURO 22 321– 33 482
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Johannesburg. Mrs HG Dekker. Prof G Dekker. LITERATURE
Marais, D. and Delmont, E. (1994). Maggie Laubser: her paintings, drawings and graphics. Johannesburg and Cape Town: Perskor Publishers, illustrated on p.354, catalogue number 1552.
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Maggie Laubser was born and raised on her parents’ wheat farm Bloublommetjieskloof in Malmesbury, Western Cape. A farmgirl through and through, her affinity for nature was the primary impetus for her individual style and personal perspective that earned Laubser recognition as one of South Africa’s foremost artists. In 1947, Laubser relocated to Strand, a coastal town in the Helderberg area, where she lived in her cottage Altyd Lig. This move from the rural farmlands and the consequential nostalgia for her kontrei marked a notable change in Laubser’s work. Now in her sixties, well-established and recognised as an artist, Laubser—in her new urban surroundings—became reliant on recollections and memories of a pastoral past. No longer immersed in the former landscapes she depicted, she initiated a period of synthesis and simplification of form. Birds Against Seascape, painted in 1953, is characteristic of the dreamlike renderings Laubser produced throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Here, the artist has switched her palette of vivid colours for softer, pastel hues which she uses to make up flattened surface planes and simplified forms. Gentle tones of complementary pinks and greens in this seascape are coupled with harmonious lines; and the rhythmic curvature of the plump clouds above are echoed in the tide that rolls in below. A window into Laubser’s great imagination, this is a scene from the artist’s utopia. As Laubser continued to reminisce throughout these later years, it was also a period defined by many career highs. Between 1950 and 1960, she participated in more than 20 exhibitions, and received acclaim and admiration in 13 solo shows. In 1947 Laubser participated in the 26th Venice Biennale. With three of her works exhibited, this was surely a defining moment for the artist. LT