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At the Oliewenhuis there’s a massive Pierneef painting of Rustenburg Kloof. It is bigger than the Station Panels, and going by the technique, probably precedes them. An elaborate gold frame with an undated plaque on it tells us this was a commission from the City of Bloemfontein.

This rendering of the Kloof is very close to the Station Panel version (see “Rustig in Rustenburg” and “A backward glance.”) It is less simplified than the Panels. It may have been done in the studio from the same sketch. Pierneef did many versions of Rustenburg Kloof, and some are clearly plein air works. There’s the famous pic of young Pierneef in his grass- walled atelier; on the easel is a painting of Rustenburg Kloof and leaning against the rail a shotgun: more Hemingway than Monet. ( You couldn’t just nip up the road to MacDonalds back then). There were also daring (for their time) versions of the Kloof done in his experimental phase after his 1925 visit to Europe. This one is at the La Motte estate in Franschoek

Last November Hermann Niebuhr and I paid the Kloof a visit; my fourth. Having worked our way through the traffic snarl ups and stocked with boerewors, we booked into one of the chalets there. The resort is well looked after. There was a constant hum of lawn mowers. Next door to us were two contract workers, their eyes glued to DSTV. The previously tatty chalets at the end have been recolonised by the Volk. We took a stroll up the Kloof, still waiting for the first summer rains. We found two dassies engaged in a bloody fight for supremacy. Oblivious to our presence, the two flailed about in the stagnant rockpools. A little metaphor for the gruesome scenes playing out at nearby Marikana.

In Pierneef’s Kloof, you can discern a stream in the left front, around where the darker toned foreground ends.That stream was there on my last visit, but someone has decided to make a water feature of it. Now the area around the central tree in Pierneef’s work is a dam. (Damn!) I can’t tell if it’s an improvement or just another case of bulldozing our history away. Next morning I was up at dawn and with the No 8 Sable brush in hand I finally saw the first light hitting that big rock face. I could hear the sounds of early morning traffic as booming Rustenburg creeps toward the Kloof. Wonder how long it’ll be before Mac Donalds does build a drive thru here?

Rustenburg Kloof, November 2012

Bloemfontein by Thomas Baines. (Note the biltong above the tent)

Last November I stopped off in Bloem on my way up to Fordsburg. I met the curator of the Oliewenhuis Art Gallery, Ester le Roux, to discuss the upcoming show. For those of you who think there’s nothing more to Bloem than the Shell Ultra City, I suggest you head for the Oliewenhuis and cast your eye over their very good collection of South African paintings. You can have an alfresco lunch too whilst admiring the fine lines of the stately old building.

A truly impressive expanse of lawn rolls out to the surrounding koppies. And yes, there are many wild olive trees here: hence the name. William Mollison designed this Neo Cape Dutch beauty in 1941 and it later became the abode of the State Presidents of the Republic when in Bloem. In that Rubicon year of 1985, when I was propping up the bar at Jamesons in downtown Joburg, PW Botha handed it over to the National Museum to be used as an art gallery. That was the best thing the unlikeable old Krokodil ever did.

Monique Pelser and I open our show here on the 3rd of October. It’s an extended version of the show we did in Stellenbosch last year. Ah, the waxing and waning of the Pierneef project. I’ve been to 20 of the 28 sites so far and I guess it won’t be over until I’ve been to all of them. I’ve taken to revisiting sites: Rustenburg Kloof four times since 2007. Ditto Meiringspoort. There may be something pathological going on here, but I often don’t spend enough time at a site, or can’t find it. In 2011, I  drove halfway around Lesotho looking for the Maluti mountain site, without success. “Malutis, Basutoland” is the Station Panel site nearest Bloemfontein. I’m going to have another crack at this riddle at the end of the month, just before the show. Malutis, anyone?

JH Pierneef, Malutis, Basutoland. c1932

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