Flora Wirgman
Cataloguer
Lot 66
Gregoire Johannes Boonzaier(South African, 1909-2005)A Spanish Street
9 March 2022, 16:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£4,000 - £6,000
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Helene Love-Allotey
Head of Department
Giles Peppiatt
Group Head, Fine Art, U.K
Gregoire Johannes Boonzaier (South African, 1909-2005)
A Spanish Street
signed and dated 'GREGOIRE 1936' (lower left)
oil on canvas
40.7 x 50.7cm (16 x 19 15/16in).
signed and dated 'GREGOIRE 1936' (lower left)
oil on canvas
40.7 x 50.7cm (16 x 19 15/16in).
Footnotes
Provenance
A private collection, UK.
In 1935, South African artist Gregoire Johannes Boonzaier (1909-2005) left Cape Town for Britain. He pursued study at the Heatherley Art School in London. Using the city as a base, he travelled to several countries including France, Spain, and Russia, before returning to South Africa in 1937. Inspired by the work of the Impressionist artists he had encountered on the Continent, Boonzaier captured his travels in paint.
In 1936, the year the present work was created, he spent significant time in Spain, producing stylistically comparable street scenes of Malaga and Torres Molinos. The works from this period demonstrate the artist's impressionistic handling of paint in the earth-toned buildings and historic fortresses that tower over figures passing along the winding streets of the picturesque cities. This experimentation in painterly style was subsequently developed by the artist through his later depictions of rural and urban South African landscapes upon his return from Europe.
