Revisions

Gregoire Boonzaier was one of South Africa’s longest-lived and most popular artists, and embodied many apparent contradictions in his work. In 1991 Albert Werth noted that in Boonzaier ‘we see unified … the two poles of conservatism and … experimentation’.1 Gregoire became a powerful figure in the South African art world of the 1930s and 40s, first as Chairman of the New Group in 1938 and then as a founder member of the SA Association of Arts in 1944. Esmé Berman mentions Boonzaier as one of the principal exponents of ‘Cape Impressionism’.2 This was hardly something that he evolved personally, but rather owed to the precedent of Pieter Wenning (1873–1921). Read More…

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