Gregoire Johannes Boonzaier (31 July 1909 – 22 April 2005) was a South African artist well known for his

landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of Terrestrial ecoregion, land, its landforms, and how they integrate with Nature, natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionar ...

portraits A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this re ...

and

still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...

paintings Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

. He was a famous exponent of

Cape A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment which drapes the wearer's back, arms, and chest, and connects at the neck. History Capes were common in medieval Europe, especially when combined with a hood in the chaperon. Th ...

Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...

, a founder of the

New Group The New Group was a group of young South African artists who, starting in 1937, began to question and oppose the conservatism of the South African Society of Artists. Its founding chairperson was Gregoire Boonzaier; other founding members were Lip ...

, and a contributor, through his art works, to the struggle against apartheid. __TOC__

Biography

Gregoire Boonzaier was the fifth child of political cartoonist

Daniël Cornelis Boonzaier Daniël Cornelis Boonzaier (11 November 1865 – 20 March 1950), more commonly known as D.C. Boonzaier, was a South African cartoonist. He was famous for his caricatures of Cape politicians and celebrities at the turn of the century, and later f ...

and his cousin Maria Elizabeth Boonzaier. Early on Gregoire made the acquaintance of the artists

Pieter Wenning Pieter Willem Frederick Wenning (9 September 1873 – 24 January 1921) was a South African painter and etcher, considered to be the progenitor of the style of Cape Impressionism. Early life and education Pieter Wenning was born in The Hague, th ...

Nita Spilhaus Nita Spilhaus born Pauline Augusta Wilhelmina Spilhaus (5 February 1878 Lisbon - 12 September 1967 Rondebosch) was a Portuguese-born South African painter, working in oil, watercolour and pastel. She is best known for her landscapes, paintings a ...

, Moses Kottler and

Anton van Wouw Anton van Wouw (27 December 1862 30 July 1945) was a Dutch-born South African sculptor regarded as the father of South African sculpture.Burger, E. ''Die Huiselike Omstandighede van Anton van Wouw''. University of Pretoria, 1941, p. 21 Biogra ...

, all of whom were close family friends. It was Moses Kottler who first gave Gregoire a box of paints in 1922 and Nita Spilhaus an easel in 1926, igniting a creative flame that was to burn for more than eighty years. Gregoire's father was dead set against a formal training in art and felt that he had more to learn from the artists around him. In 1923 his first two oil paintings were shown at Ashbey's Gallery in Cape Town, simply signed "GREGOIRE". His first one-man exhibition followed two years later – he was to hold more than 100 one-man exhibitions during his painting career. After an acrimonious confrontation with his father in 1932, Gregoire moved into his own studio in Cape Town and after a successful exhibition visited England in 1934 where he was a student together with Terence McCaw and Frieda Lock at the

Heatherley School of Fine Art The Heatherley School of Fine Art is an independent art school in London. The school was named after Thomas Heatherley who took over as the school's principal from James Mathews Leigh (when it was named "Leigh's"). Founded in 1845, the school ...

under Bernard Adams, and training in graphic art techniques at the

Central School of Art and Design The Central School of Art and Design was a public school of fine and applied arts in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1896 by the London County Council as the Central School of Arts and Cr ...

in London. His early paintings having been strongly influenced by Pieter Wenning, he now absorbed the work of

Van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inclu ...

, Cézanne, Utrillo and

Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...

, and made trips as far afield as Russia, where his socialist leanings are reinforced. He returned three years later to help found the New Group, with Terence McCaw, Frieda Lock, Lippy Lipshitz and others, and served as its first chairman for ten years. The New Group served as a forum and mouthpiece of young South African art for almost 15 years, staging exhibitions throughout the country, and providing rural areas with a glimpse of the new trends in art. He served for six years on the Board of the

South African National Gallery The Iziko South African National Gallery is the national art gallery of South Africa located in Cape Town. It became part of the Iziko collection of museums – as managed by the Department of Arts and Culture – in 2001. It then became an agenc ...

, Cape Town. Boonzaier made Cape Town his base and his subsequent work reflected views of

District Six District Six (Afrikaans ''Distrik Ses'') is a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town, South Africa. Over 60,000 of its inhabitants were History of South Africa in the Apartheid era#Forced removal, forcibly removed during the 1970s ...

and the Malay Quarter, recording its colourful life. He settled at Onrusrivier, a short distance outside Hermanus. He had been introduced to Onrus shortly after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Uys Krige Mattheus Uys Krige (4 February 1910 – 10 August 1987) was a South African writer of novels, short stories, poems and plays in Afrikaans and English. In Afrikaans literature, Krige is counted among the '' Dertigers'' ("Writers of the Thirties"). ...

whose family had holidayed there for many years. He took part with 43 SA artists, in the "Exhibition of South African Art" at the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

in London in 1948.

Honours and awards

Boonzaier received three honorary doctorates. His numerous prizes and awards included the silver

Order for Meritorious Service The Order for Meritorious Service is a South African National Order that consisted of two classes, in gold and silver, and was awarded to deserving South African citizens. The order was discontinued on 2 December 2002.Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist who served as the President of South Africa, first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1 ...

in 1999. His work is to be found in private and corporate collections throughout the world.

Death

In 2003 Gregoire's sons, Anton and Emile, together with the family accountant Sybrand Smit, took over the financial side of his art studio. In the same year Marie, Boonzaier's partner of some 60 years, succumbed to a stroke. In November 2004 Boonzaier completed some works, and tidied his studio for the last time. In February 2005 he took to bed on a hunger strike, waiting for death, which came at 10:15 p.m. on 22 April.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boonzaier, Gregoire 1909 births 2005 deaths Alumni of the Central School of Art and Design Alumni of the Heatherley School of Fine Art South African artists