lowveldart
the nomad artist Words : Dale Hes Photos: Sven Musica
The recent revamping of a disused building in Barberton unearthed friezes painted by a restless artist who undertook a remarkable journey across Africa in the early 1900’s
B
ack in the early 1900’s - when Barberton was still in its high-rolling, cocksure, devil-may-care heyday adventurers, traders, hunters, gold diggers and remitance men blazed a trail to the small town, convinced of their chances of striking it rich. They came by wagon and horseback if they had the wherewithal or on Shank’s Pony if they didn’t. Men arrived from every corner of the earth, chasing their dreams or fleeing their pasts. And all of them at some stage passed through the doors of the rumbunctious Impala Hotel. Among their number was one Conrad Genal. The hustle and laughter of that era and of those men’s lives has been largely swallowed up by time and forgotten. This would have been Genal’s fate too if not for a recent renovation project which uncovered a series of friezes he painted as barter for board and lodging, and which have revived his memory. When Lawrence Reyneke, the present owner of the Impala Hotel, began a restoration project on the disused building his workers chipping away at the old paint on the interior walls, revealed the exquisitely detailed art inspired by the famous Percy FitzPatrick story, Jock of the Bushveld.
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“I had some idea of who they were painted by and I immediately got excited,” says Reyneke. “Conrad Genal is a legend in these parts.” Genal’s life story is a tale of adventure that reads like the pages of a Clive Cussler novel. Born in Germany in 1875, Genal fulfilled a childhood dream when, aged nineteen, he packed his bags for North Africa to join the French Foreign Legion. He served in the scorching Sahara Desert and became infatuated with the continent. So deep was his love that, when his legion was ordered to relocate to Asia, he seized an opportunity to escape by diving into the sea as his ship passed through the Suez Canal. Despite being shot by the ship’s guard, he managed to reach the shore and scramble to safety. Disguised as a nomadic Somalian trader, he meandered south along the fertile Nile River Valley, through Egypt, Sudan, Uganda and Kenya. En route, Genal put his artistic talents to work, painting friezes on the walls of hotels in exchange for his accommodation. Most of them have been erased over time and the find in Barberton is a rare exception. On reaching Zambia, he met Alice Watts whom he married in 1901.
After flirting with the monotony of a steady job as a railway guard, his wanderlust flared up again and Genal left behind a growing family to explore more of Africa. He travelled across Rhodesia and the former Transvaal and Natal before World War I broke out in 1914. Then 29 years old, Genal was automatically enlisted to fight for Germany, but for the second time in his life managed to escape serving in uniform and succeeded in eluding authorities for the duration of the war. He went on to decorate numerous halls, hotels and churches with his paintings; depicting everything from the bush and wildlife, to Africa’s Great Lakes and medieval town scenes. Genal evidently wandered away from the Lowveld to Durban where he died in 1939 of what is thought to have been an asthma attack, just three years after he completed the Barberton friezes. Today, despite the plethora of locations where Genal practiced his art, Barberton is the only place where the work of the travelling artist is known to have survived. The discovery of the paintings in the former Impala Hotel - now called the Greenstone Trading Post - adds to an existing collection of Genal’s friezes at the nearby Digger’s Retreat Hotel. For further information contact 013 712 2108.