LOUISfees
JANSEN
VAN feast
VUUREN
Foreword
L
egends are made up of many different threads, all woven together over time. They never
come to a complete stop. They always inspire us. They help us to dream.
Louis Jansen van Vuuren is a respected artist on two continents. He changed my life and
still inspires me on a daily basis. He is known for his sense of style, elegance and artistry.
For many of his clients, half the pleasure of acquiring an original LJVV work comes from
interacting, watching and admiring the man.
The love affair started when I first noticed his work in Church Street, Cape Town. Not
only visually stunning, but alluding to something deeper in the human psyche. His works
tap into our notions of beauty and, as the viewer, I always felt as if I was given a sense of
the strong force behind the creation – almost a glimpse into a sacred and beautiful spiritual
world. Meeting and befriending this charming, passionate artist transformed the way I saw
beauty. His works full of flowers, fruits, masks, figures, inside and outside, interior and
landscape are no longer mere entities that will wither and decay in time, but beauty through
perfection, composition and colour. As a gallerist I see how people react to his work in their
‘realisation’ of the sensational!
Louis’ love for good food and wine affected his life and his art. When you visit him
and Hardy in their chateau in Boussac, France, you come back inspired and determined to
return with all the people you hold dearest, to share this great experience with them. With
every meal, a feast unfolds and with each beautiful plate of food, all five of your senses are
engaged. He loves to collect antiques, cutlery, linen and glass. He makes you see things
in a different light! Whether it’s the exceptional cuisine, the storytelling, the beauty, the art;
everyone feels enlightened when you say goodbye to La Creuzette.
Louis is without a doubt an extraordinary human being and artist and my wishes for him
on his 60th birthday are health, wealth and happiness and many more years of exploration
of things beautiful.
Self portrait, 1978
Elana Brundyn
iArt Gallery, Cape Town
A Votre Sante!
by Anet Pienaar Vosloo
D
ie sterre het die aand van 30 Januarie 1949 baie helder oor die vlaktes van Mpumalanga
geskyn. Die mooi Elizabeth hou haar vierde kind vas terwyl die trotse pa, Daniel, na
sy derde seun met groot drome in sy oë kyk.
Louis Jansen van Vuuren is sestig jaar gelede in Middelburg, in die ou Transvaal gebore.
Die nasaat van Franse en Nederlandse immigrante wat ’n paar eeue vroeër ’n beter heenkoms
aan die suidpunt van Afrika kom soek het, was die Jansen van Vuurens se voorsate: Gerrit
Janszoon van die dorpie Vuren in Holland, getroud met Susanne Jacob van Veille Eglise, Bas
Calais. Saam arriveer hulle in Tafelbaai op 5 Julie 1688 op die skip De Schelde en later vestig
hulle, hulle op De Goede Hoop, Drakenstein en later op die plaas Bellingham.
Pa Daniel was ’n mooi en ’n netjiese man, soos sy Pa en soos sy kinders. Die Van Vuuren
kennebak se form is deel van die gedetermineerde persoonlikheid deur die familie loop.
‘n Knap sakeman met vele ondermenings in die dorp en elders en later ook Burgemeester.
Daniel Rudolph Jansen van Vuuren and
Maria Magdelena Fourie
Anet Pienaar Vosloo and Louis
Ma Elizabeth was sag, hardwerkend, maar tog ‘n vrou wat haar man kon staan. ‘n Skraal
steunpilaar vir haar familie en burgemeestersvrou wat verskeie liefdadigheidsorganisasies
ondersteun het en later in haar lewe, toe die kinders groter was, meer tyd aan die opheffing
van die minderbevoorregte komponent van die Middelburgse gemeenskap kon gee.
Louis se jeugjare was kaalvoet-kinderdae met min bekommernisse, baie liefde, stormagtige
debatte aan die etenstafel en ruim geleenthede in die besige Van Vuuren huishouding. Tog
was dit vir Daniel vreemd dat sy mooi jongste kind meer in kuns as skoolwerk belanggestel
het.Op tipiese Louis-manier het hy aanhou neul en kerm tot sy pa ingegee het en in
standerd sewe skryf hy by Hoërskool Middelburg se kunsklas in.
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Elizabeth Jansen van Vuuren
Nicholaas, Catherina, Louis and Daniel
Louis with friends, Henkie and Frank
Hy kry ‘n lekker ruim vertrek langs die swembad se pompkamer waar hy sy talente vinnig
ontwikkel. Om sy maatjies te beïndruk gebruik hy sy anatomieboek om die lyflikhede van
die vroulike vorm te ontdek en te teken en gou het sy kunskamer in ’n ontdekkingstog vir
die blinkoog puberteitsbrigade geword. Langs die pompkamer het die stoom gestaan soos
Louis na hartelus kon skilder, teken en skep, en sy vriende met kwashale en kwinkslae
beïndruk.
Maar hy was nie ’n boheemse kluisenaarskind wat net mooi prentjies wou maak nie.
Louis het uitgeblink op sportgebied en was ‘n blitsige naelloper wat reeds in die laerskool
die rekords laat spat het. In st 5 ewenaar hy reeds die beroemde Paul Nash se interskole
100m rekord en verbeter en breek dwarsdeur sy skoolloopbaan vele rekords en harte.
Tussendeur was daar die een duikkompetisie na die ander waarin hy uitgeblink het.
Hy kon hol! Met sy lang lyf, blonde kuif, Paul Newman oë en charisma was hy in
alle gebiede ’n voorloper en kon hy sy talente op sportgebied, in die kunsklas en op
skoolpartytjies uitdeel. Louis weet wat hy wil hê en hy kry wat hy wil hê.
Sy eerste uitstalling vind op 17-jarige ouderdom in die Metodiste-Kerksaal in Middelburg
plaas. Die uitstalling trek die aandag en The Rand Daily Mail en Vaderland skryf oor die
jong man met belowende talent. Sy twee kunsonderwyseresse het groot indruk op hom
gemaak en Katinka van der Merwe en Harry Luitingh inspireer hom om die lang en soms
eensame pad met kuns as lewensroete aan te pak.
Louis in Durban
Met die ondersteuning van sy ma, wat die liefde vir irisse in sy geheue geplant – sy het
elke jaar bolle van Schweizer-Renecke bestel – het hy ’n volwaardige uitstalling aangebied
wat reeds met die intrapslag goed verkoop het. Die tema was sedert die begindae dikwels
blomme en landskappe. Louis wil altyd van die wêreld om hom ’n mooier plek maak.
Hy het ook reeds vroeg in sy lewe verlief geraak op die purperbloue, diep misterieuse
kobaltskakerings wat diep in irisse se holtes lê.
Louis and Melvyn Minnaar, Stellenbosch
There was great excitement in the Van Vuuren household when Daniel sent his youngest
to University. It had to be Stellenbosch, which was known for its excellent art department.
Louis grabbed student life at Maties with both hands. He slid into the joys of being
young, handsome and full of vigour and into the glamorous yet poor life of being a student,
an artist and model.
Simonsberg is sy bakermat, en die aantreklike Louis is ‘n haan onder die henne. Nadat hy
op ’n slag vir ’n paar dae aaneen nie by die koshuis oorslaap nie, terwyl sy Pa bekommerd
na hom soek en boodskappe los, het Pa Daniel die lang pad van Middelburg aangepak om
sy seun van die verderf te probeer red. Hy vind Louis, handdoek om die middellyf by die
halfdeur van ’n vriendin se kothuisie op die dorp met slaap in sy öe.
Louis with one of the artworks
from his first exhibition
Soos alle koshuiskinders wat vir die eerste keer ver van die huis is en eie besluite kan
neem, gryp Louis die geleenthede aan. Hy en vriende hou deftige pieknieks met goedkoop
wyn onder die akkerbome, dra lang tafels op die voorstoepe van ou wynplaashuise uit en
droom van paleise en kastele ...
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Louis and Philip Zietsman,
Stellenbosch
Louis with fellow art students, Brenda
Hofmeyr and Renee Keyser
3
It was during these formative years as student that Louis started exploring the depths of
his talent and Prof Otto Schreuder from the Stellenbosch Art Department played a large role
in the route he took. Prof Alice Mertens, another of several German lecturers, inspired him
with her perfectionist approach to photography: to balance, light and shade.
Jochen Berger, a lecturer in graphic design, became a friend and inspiration and with
the cooperative help of these mentors, Louis turned out top of the class and won several
prizes and scholarships including one awarded by the Maggie Loubser Foundation. Louis
met Maggie Loubser subsequently on several occasions and remembers fondly the lively
discussions over coffee and cake as he prepared a series of lectures on her life and work.
Upon her death, it was Louis who was charged with the responsibility of sorting and
cataloguing the collection that she bequeathed to the University of Stellenbosch.
After four years Louis completed his degree in art and design, to the amazement of his
father and pride of his mother. They gave him a ticket to go to Europe and Louis headed
straight to Paris which apart from art, really became the first love of his life.
Louis at his graduation
Here he discovered the abundant joys of architecture, of design on a seriously large scale
and of earning a keep as a model. He blew his money on wonderful meals and donated
blood the next day to pay for it all.
Louis and Mary Lynn
The unhealthy lifestyle only lasted three months until Daniel ensured that Louis was safely
back at Stellenbosch. He was accepted without hesitation to do his honours degree and did
it once again with the vigour and enthusiasm which became his trademark throughout his
career.
His first appointment was at the Natal Technikon where Louis became a colleague of
Gavin Younge, Cliff Bestall and Paul Stopforth. He lectured in History of Art, drawing and
lithography. It was during this time that he participated in the World Print Exhibition and
one of works submitted, was purchased by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
For Louis, being a young man in a hurry, the students became friends and their mutual
love for life was infectious. He met and was smitten by a readhead lass from the lush valleys
of Hibberdene, Mary Lynn Hulley who temporarily was to dethrone Paris.
Louis and Mary Lynn became one of the most glamorous couples on campus. She was
an artist and fashion designer and made her own flamboyant outfits with the adoration and
support of dapper Louis. They married in a small church in Scottburgh, but never had the
opportunity to settle in Natal as Louis had been offered a teaching post at University of
Stellenbosch.
Louis in Stellenbosch, 1969
Back on home-ground Louis started his career as lecturer and artist. The newly-married
couple moved into a quaint cottage in the village with Wolk, their white Afghan, where
they spent their first happy years together. In his studio, Louis started experimenting on
large canvasses using mixed media and for the first time, goldleaf. He held his first large
exhibition in Stellenbosch and being prolific as he still is, this was followed by his first solo
show at the Association of Visual Arts in Cape Town in 1977.
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Louis on exhibition invitation
Louis and his daughter, Blou
5
Met sy terugkeer na Suid Afrika aanvaar Louis ‘n pos as dosent in grafiese ontwerp aan
die Universiteit van Kaapstad se Michaelis Kunsskool in die Tuine. Sy lewe neem nuwe
wendings en hy aanvaar in 1987 die geleentheid om by die Cité Internationale Des Arts in
Parys te gaan werk en te studeer. Die liefdesverhouding met Parys en die Franse verdiep
en word die grondslag om ’n paar jaar later maklik deur immigrasie in ’n nuwe Franse land
te kan stap.
Sy betrokkenheid met die bevordering van die kunste word ‘n nuwe fokus in sy lewe en
gedurende 1988 word Louis verkies tot die voorsitter van die Suid Afrikaanse Kunsverening
in Kaapstad en ook tot die Raad van Trustees van die SA Nasionale Kunsmuseum. Sy eie
kunsloopbaan word, om verskeie redes, effe agtertoe geskuif en gedurende hierdie tyd
ontmoet hy Hardy Olivier, wat ’n groot rol begin speel met die administrasie van Louis se
persoonlike kunsloopbaan.
Louis with his Honours class
Group show
Back row Dieter Dill, Hardy Botha,
Naomi Smit, Louis Jansen van Vuuren
and Jochen Berger.
Front row Paddy Bauma, Sue Coetzee,
Ingrid Winterbach, Ella-Lou O’Mara
and Christina Bryer It was during this same year that they decided to swap village life for a more rural
existence on the beautiful farm Groenvlei outside Stellenbosch. It was here that their
daughter, Blou was born. She was a spritely little girl with her father’s determination and
charm and of course the trademark family jawbone.
His colleagues at the time were Ingrid Winterbach, Hardy Botha and Steven Coetzer,
with whom he shared many experiences in a turbulent time in South Africa’s history. They
became aware of politics which fuelled many creative processes and heated debates.
He was adored by his students and well-known for making young arrivals feel special
and at home in his classes. He never walked into a classroom, he strutted as if on a catwalk.
He was inspiring, original and challenging and liked to push the boundaries to make the
students think and delve deep into the cores of their abilities.
A fun filled period followed in Stellenbosch with parties, fashion shows and many, many
paintings. Juggling a glamorous life, art career and marriage became too much and during
1982, the couple decided to go their separate ways. Louis returned to his first love: Paris.
6
7
Francine Scialom and Louis painting
for the exhibition entitled, Artists by Artists.
Neville Dubow took the picture
Hardy was ’n bankier van Kaapstad (oorspronklik van Namibië) en ‘n hegte vriendsakap
ontwikkel. Hulle vestig hulle in Tamboerskloof waar Hardy besig was om sy droomhuis te
bou en saam pak hulle die lewe en letterlik die wêreld aan. Gedurende die dekade wat volg,
reis hulle saam die wêreld deur waar Louis nuwe inspirasie vir sy werk kry.
Louis se kunsloopbaan neem ‘n nuwe wending aan en gedurende die volgende dekade
neem hy deel aan bykans sewentig suksesvolle tentoonstellings in Suid-Afrika en in die
buiteland. Enkeles hiervan sluit in: Crosscurrents-Contemporary South African Art, by die
Barbara Gillman Gallery in Miami VSA, ’n Groeptentoonstelling getitel Portraits from South
Africa by die Axis Gallery in New York en in 1999 die eerste kollaborasies tussen hom,
Willie Bester en Zwelethu Methethwa by die AVA Gallery in Kaapstad en ’n jaar later weer
met Zwelethu en Pat Mautloa by dieselfde Kaapse Gallery.
Louis and Hardy
Zwelethu Mthethwa, Louis and Wolapi Mazimba
Marilyn Martin en Louis
In 1990 word hy verkies tot die Nasionale President van die SA Kunsvereniging en
ook tot die aanwinste-komitee van die Departement van Nasionale Opvoeding. Hy word
die redakteur van die SA Kunskalender en aanvaar ook ’n aanstelling as die eerste ViseKommissaris vir die 1993 Viennesiese Biënnale waartydens Suid-Afrika weer toetree tot die
wêreld-kunsarena na jarelange kulturele afsondering. Hy verrig hiedie taak met groot sukses
en met die bystand van goeie vriendin Marilyn Martin (tot onlangse aftrede Direktrise van
die SA Nasionale Kunsmuseum). Vele ander aanstellings volg, soos die kuratorskap vir die
SA komponent van die uitstalling Il Sud du Monde en Louis gee meer en meer van sy tyd en
expertise tot bevordering van die kunste.
It was an offer to exhibit a second time at the Akka Valmey Gallery in Paris which
prompted Louis to investigate the possibilty of buying a small property in the countryside
close to Paris. A friend and ex Capetonian, Michael de Combes introduced them to the lesser
known Central Region of France and the charm of the area worked it’s magic. A quaint little
cottage with a marvellous view over a pastoral countryside in Lapeyrouse became a studioaway-from-home.
8
Louis, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Sandile Dikeni
and Willie Bester
Louis with one of his expressive
canvases during the Eighties
On one of his short stays back in South Africa, Louis curated – together with Estelle
Jacobs of the AVA – a travelling exhibition entitled Project Conflux which was first
exhibited in Luxembourg, before travelling through France where it had been selected
by the Foreign Office to be showcased at a Cultural Fair in Dijon.
It was not long before Hardy realised that he had to make an important decision
to either continue with his successful career in banking or mount the mad horse and
join Louis – who gradually started meandering towards spending more and more time,
painting and exhibiting in France.
Louis and Minister Ben Ngubane and
South Africa’s Amassador to France at the
Priject conflux exhibition in Dijon, France
9
Anet and Ton Vosloo with Hardy and Louis
On each visit to Louis in France, Hardy would look for business opportunities or projects
that would help him to make the decision. On one such visit, they came across la Creuzette
and the rest is, as they say, history. They packed up their life in Cape Town all together and
dived in head first into a completely new lifestyle with challenging opportunities and risks.
Together they started the long and often painful process of restoring la Creuzette, a grand
old lady, to even grander looks, and launched a successful business selling beautiful France
to visiting groups through art, good food and wine.
Some have referred to Louis ad Hardy as pioneers who started the ‘return of the French
Hugenots’ But for them, they were only living their dream with which visitors to la Creuzette
very easily fell in love. Several South African and friends from other parts of the world
have as a result settled in the Limousin and with Louis and Hardy’s help and inspiration
injected major investment in the area. Together with neighbour Anet Pienaar Vosloo, a book
describing the delights of living in France and at la Creuzette is being published. It promises
fun, highlighting the fables and foibles of French living.
The fighting spirit, determination and ability to work extremely hard and under difficult
circumstances has finally, after more than ten years paid off … Louis has the studio of his
dreams and the castle that he wished for, with Hardy at his side.
He turns sixty and is in the prime of his life. The demand for his art is bigger, his life
fulfilled and his friendships deeper and more meaningful than ever before.
La Creuzette
10
Louis Jansen van Vuuren
by Marilyn Martin
L
Marilyn Martin and Louis
ouis Jansen van Vuuren’s relationship with France grew slowly, perhaps tentatively, out
of a sojourn at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris in 1987. When he eventually
left South Africa, he had established a reputation as a foremost artist and designer and he
was known as a teacher, as a promoter and administrator of the visual arts on national
and international levels, and as one who worked unstintingly for those institutions and
organisations which he served in a voluntary capacity. He is remembered, admired and
loved in South Africa as a warm and generous person, who selflessly put his skills and
energies at the disposal of those who carried the burden of disadvantage.
Jansen van Vuuren is extraordinarily versatile and proficient in many different media –
painting, drawing, printmaking, collage, photography, illustration and the creation of set
designs and trompe-l’oeil interiors. This essay is concerned with his drawings and paintings.
While certain forms of expression emerge and dominate in the course of his career, they are
ultimately pulled together by a personal search and vision and by an approach to art making
which is associative rather than descriptive, experiential rather than illustrative, symbolic
rather than narrative, romantic rather than classical. These characteristics are manifested
through various themes, as well as a predilection for specific subjects, such as portraits,
landscape, still life, interiors.
Jansen van Vuuren always knew that he wanted to be an artist and, since his teenage
years, he has been prolific and consistent in producing and showing his work. At the
age of seventeen he held an exhibition of about forty paintings in oil and watercolour in
Middelburg, Transvaal. A number were sold, pointing to a future which would be marked
by both critical and commercial success. One of the reviewers commented on the influence
of the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) which was discernible in his youthful work.
This too was a portent of things to come.
The human figure was ubiquitous in the paintings and drawings of the late 1970s.
The depictions took the form of self-portraits, portraits, figures in landscapes, icons. Titles
alluding to re-creation, metamorphosis, disillusion and mythology were indicative of the
artist’s concerns. (Fig. 1) The paintings were fluid and organic, with distinctive linearity
and clear, considered divisions of the format predominating. The following decade brought
a loosening of the brushwork and the assimilation and concomitant disintegration of the
human form in dramatic settings. A strong abstract-expressionist impulse can be detected,
accompanied by a greater awareness of the physicality of the paint itself. (Fig. 2) The artist’s
interest in the genre of still life painting emerges.
11
Fig 1Loelsies se Hoppelperd
Oil and gold leaf on canvas
Private collection, Stellenbosch
Fig 2Dis jou Laaste Kans
Oil on canvas
Private collection, San Francisco
Fig 3Windows – Crossroads
Pencil and graphite on cotton paper
SASOL Collection, Johannesburg
From 1983 there was a growing awareness in Jansen van Vuuren of the political situation
in South Africa and the needs of communities struggling to survive around Cape Town.
He orchestrated fundraising events for hunger relief, for flood victims and for the Mother
Theresa Sisterhood Fund Khayelitsha; he joined the Red Cross relief team, which meant
delivering food parcels and building materials to Crossroads, an informal settlement, and
coming into contact with the people living there.
His experiences were echoed in powerful images that depict law-enforcement officers,
graffiti – ‘Eat the Rich’ and ‘Free Mandela’ – and the poignant Crossroads Series. An exhibition,
held in 1984 and entitled ‘Crossroads’, comprised photographs, works in mixed media and
pencil drawings, the latter being at the time the most appropriate and powerful vehicle
for conveying the artist’s involvement with and admiration for the people of the informal
settlement. In one series he concentrated on windows, in another on the ritual – repeated
daily – of erecting, dismantling and burying the illegal shelters. (Fig. 3) The works were
accompanied by prose poems. The realities of living in ‘the fairest Cape in all the world’ also
reverberated in works dealing with environmental pollution and degradation. (Fig. 4)
The world commemorated the death of Vincent van Gogh in 1990. A passionate admirer
of the Dutch artist, Jansen van Vuuren visited The Netherlands and the South of France,
particularly the places where Van Gogh spent his last years. His intense emotions were
released in a series of expressionistic, painterly works, mostly of irises, in which he succeeded
in conveying a powerful sense of mood. Jansen van Vuuren stated in an interview:
Van Gogh’s irises have always impressed me tremendously for their vitality and potency.
Yet, even as a child, long before I became aware of Van Gogh, I had a tremendous affinity
for the iris. I think I was intrigued by the fact that, despite its delicate beauty, the iris is
known to be an extremely poisonous flower. As kids, we were always warned to keep
away from it.
A study tour of Egypt, France, Greece, Israel and Italy in 1991, and a stay of six weeks in
the Cité International des Arts in Paris, brought about changes in both the style and content
of his oeuvre. The drawings were gentler than before, more controlled somehow, with
varying degrees of abstraction and representation. There were views from an interior onto
the city, intimate – sometimes claustrophobic – interiors, the merging of figure with interior
objects, architectural elements, vases and flowers. The human figure returned in the form
of an enigmatic male who is simultaneously voyeur, observer, beholder; one who is distant
yet not separate, distracted yet palpable. This personage, always rendered in blue, became
a leitmotif in subsequent works. So too have the still life objects imbued with a life force
of their own. In a single fruit or in a combination of elements, the artist finds vehicles for
transcending time, place and physicality – a pomegranate emanates and unearthly glow, a
dark fig reveals unexpected menace.
A trip to Morocco culminated in a major show in December 1992. In her opening
address writer Marilyn Keegan spoke of the
… sense of abundance, fertility, over-ripeness, luxury. There are burst figs, plump cherries
and plums, there are succulent, luscious peaches and light feathery drapes gliding into
deep, dark edges. There’s an epicurean and sexual profusion of pendulous petals, spewing
fountains, the soft curves of urns … and they are all worked in a luminous sensuality with
a judicious hint of decadence.
The nights were indigo, the gardens fragrant and the architectural details – balconies,
fountains, window grilles, traceries, tiles and mosaics – captured and illuminated in glorious
colours and a profusion of marks. (Fig. 5)
Fig 4Scorched Peninsula
Pencil and Graphite on cotton paper
South African National Gallery
Collection, Cape Town
Fig 5Moroccan Interior
Pastel on cotton paper
Private Collection, Cape Town
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Fig 6Rust
Pastel on Cotton Paper
Private collection, Cape Town
Fig 8Confluence
Pastel on cotton paper
Private collection, New York
The experience of Mali in 1994 brought new imagery into the paintings and drawings
– masks and fabrics that were lovingly sought and acquired. The objects from West Africa
would succeed in banishing the human figure, if only temporarily. The different colours
and smells, the adobe architecture, vast expanses of river, the breezes, the paleness of
the desert and unusual sights such as bushes covered with thick spider’s webs, created
another context, another ambience for exploring contrasts of inside and outside, interior and
landscape, entering and departing. A Bambara mask demands the viewer’s attention, as the
eye is enticed around and through the still life, to finally come to rest on the landscape. The
mask, rendered in bursts of red, orange and brown enhances the sense of monumentality,
even on a small format. (Fig. 6)
This series – one of seven cycles of nine works each, covering a period of five years –
was specially selected and created for Jansen van Vuuren’s first major show in Paris in 1998,
at Galerie AKKA. They were chronicles of his physical and metaphysical voyages, of staying
and leave-taking, of presence and absence and they started in Italy, in Siena. The cathedral
tower of the Tuscan city looms impressively and forms a compositional and conceptual
counterpoint to the human figure in Blue Angel. The dialogue between reality and dream
is pursued through stylistic, chromatic and tonal contrasts, and through ranges of infinitely
complex greys which are unexpectedly interrupted by strong colour. The structures of
the tower and other architectural elements, in which most of the drawings are rooted, are
suddenly contradicted by an interior which floats in ambient space, presided over by an
angel in the sky. (Fig. 7)
At this time, Jansen van Vuuren’s enduring love for and fascination with the Cape
Peninsula, which have inspired so many works throughout his career, found expression in
drawings which offered new iconographic and compositional elements. In the large works,
with their different perspective vantage points, the interiors take precedence; (Fig. 8) in the
smaller ones the landscape occupies much of the picture surface, with a floating piece of
cloth being the only vestige of the still life remaining in Atlantic Blue. (Fig. 9) Entitled ‘Cap
de Bonne Espérance’, this cycle reminds us that the Cape is not only the place where two
oceans meet and where the colonial history of South Africa began, but that people from all
over the world have come to visit and settle, and that they continue to do so. By combining
objects from many parts of Africa, VOC (Dutch East India Company) porcelain and French
tapestry with the fruits, flowers and landscape of the Cape, the artist brings Africa and
Europe, East and West and past and present together. (Fig. 10)
Fig 9 Atlantic Blue
Pastel on cotton paper
Private Collection, Alier France
Fig 10 The Mask
Pastel on cotton paper
Collection, the artist
Fig 7Blue Angel
Pastel on cotton Paper
Private collection, Paris
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15
The East – India – was the source for the cycle in which only glimpses of the landscape
appear. The curtain, which is used as a device in so many works to reveal and conceal
and to tempt the viewer to imagine what is happening inside and outside, is now drawn,
the shutters are almost closed on the heat of the day, so that the lushness and eroticism
pervading the interior may be fully contemplated and absorbed. The fecundity of the naked
female figure is made more potent by the profusion of colours and textures. (Fig. 11)
Towards the end of 1997 profound changes began to occur in Jansen van Vuuren’s
creative experience and expression. Architecture and defining, containing structures
disintegrated as he attempted to scatter and fragment the illusionistic tradition which had
governed much of his work. At the same time, form and space were given greater density
and lines and marks were reduced and controlled. This departure can be seen in the interior
cycle ‘Shuttered Glimpses’. (Fig. 12)
In ‘Terra Incognita’ the artist visited hitherto unexplored territories of the subconscious
and of the heart. Portraits and memories from childhood were captured in small images
which were carefully placed on the picture surface, as if in a photo album or collage.
(Fig. 13)
Fig 11Dreaming in Buktapur
Pastel on cotton paper
Collection, the artist
Fig 14Heads
Pencil and graphite on cotton paper
Collection, the artist
Fig 12Mask
Pastel on cotton paper
Private Collection, Cape Town
16
Fig 15 Till the end of Time
Pastel on cotton Paper
Private Collection, Paris
Fig 13The Diver
Pastel on cotton paper
Private Collection, Johannesburg
17
Jansen van Vuuren has often defied gravity in his oeuvre, as if to suddenly release
objects from their physicality, from the ‘real’ world, and to cast them adrift in fields of colour
and space. This was perhaps the most telling and significant departure in the late 1990s. The
faces, fruits, shells and boomerang in Heads (Fig. 14) are drifting, suspended, moving in
and out of the surface as the eye tries to find a point of focus. They are meticulously drawn
and iconic in their isolation, but the monochromatic palette and indeterminate backgrounds
suggest that the artist is dealing not with perception, but with the true nature of reality which
exists behind the eye.
The dualities between objective and subjective and between external and internal are
reconciled or held in tension in the cycle ‘Voices’. A key work is Till the End of Time
(Fig. 15). Here ancestral and other voices find expression in enigmatic portraits, heads,
masks and ghostly visages that communicate without speaking, that engage with animals
and ancient rock engravings. Automatic drawing combines with archetypal circular forms,
shamanistic marks and soft, wiped surfaces to create a world in which the non-physical
predominates. The sense of otherworldliness is intensified by the contrasts of openness and
density, the delicate but complex layering of shape and line, and the limited colour range.
In some of his oil paintings, Jansen van Vuuren divided the canvas into areas of blue
and gold – the colours of heaven – but the objects floating in isolation, or caught in intricate
overlaps, controverted this and challenged the two-dimensionality of the picture surface.
(Fig. 16) His beloved irises were ubiquitous in a second solo show at Galerie AKKA in 2000:
drawn with utmost delicacy in the presence of an exquisite bowl (Fig. 17) or cropped and
isolated with expressionistic, almost menacing, undertones. (Fig. 18) In some still lifes of
2003 – both drawn and painted – the multitudes of superbly rendered fruits occupy the
entire picture plane, creating dynamic movement and jumping out at the spectator, thereby
contradicting the very term ‘still life’. (Fig. 19)
Fig 19 Big Red
Pastel on cotton paper
Private Collection, Stellenbosch Fig 16 Blue Reflections
Oil and gold leaf on canvas
Private Collection, London
Far left
Fig 17 Iris and Bowl
Pastel on Cotton Paper
Private Collection Cape Town Fig 18 Iris
Pastel on cotton paper
Private Collection, Greece 18
19
Understandably Jansen van Vuuren’s departure from South Africa to live in France
brought about changes and new cycles – more references to his new environment, first the
landscape in Auvergne and then the Limousin, where he settled in 2000. The formal gardens
and grand axiality of French architect proved irresistible, as did the city of light, Paris. Views
from his studio window at Chateau la Creuzette inspired pastel drawings and paintings of
roses and more irises, and he paid homage to the great French artists Paul Cézanne (18391906), Claude Monet (1840-1926) and Henri Matisse (1869-1954). (Fig. 20)
The sublime colourist, Jansen van Vuuren’s palette varies from time to time, from work
to work, depending on his subject and the narrative arc or mood he wishes to convey.
In some of the interiors of 2004 his hallmark blue is subordinated to muted greys and soft
tertiary juxtapositions of yellow and purple. (Fig. 21) Paris, on the other hand, inspired
a heightened colour range and vibrant interplay of complimentary blues and oranges
combined with impres- sionistic paint application. (Fig. 22) This surprised viewers at the
artist’s 2006 solo exhibition at the Association for Visual Arts in Cape Town.
His love and longing for Table Mountain and the Boland, combined with regular visits
to South Africa, compel Jansen van Vuuren to return to it as subject matter, to revisit and
re-interpret it in drawings and paintings. This is reflected in a number of new works created
for this significant exhibition at Grande Provence. (Fig. 23)
Fig 22Rue de Rivoli
Oil on canvas
Private Collection, Cape Town Fig 20Homage to Matisse
Pastel on cotton paper
Private Collection, Cape Town Fig 21 La Rochelle
Pastel on cotton paper
Private Collection London
Fig 23The Mountain
Pastel on cotton paper, 70 X 100 cm
On current exhibition
20
21
Fig 25The Feast
Oil on canvas
On current exhibition
It is a time to celebrate and what better theme than abundant feasts and delights, to
entice and engage the viewer/participant. Jansen van Vuuren’s astonishing facility with
combining exterior and interior views, spatial depth and surface pattern, striking hues and
the ineffable quality of light is undiminished in the recent drawings and paintings, but there
are subtle shifts in mood, perhaps stimulated by the chronological milestone and looking
back on an extraordinary life and achievement. The objects in the painting Feast I – the
candelabra, silver, glass, fruit, even the chairs – exude an unearthly glow; we do not know
when the guest will arrive, if they ever will or who they might be. (Fig. 24)
22
The high viewpoint is even more exaggerated in Feast II thereby enhancing the sense
of mystery. (Fig. 25) The guests have departed, pleasure is spent and all that remains is a
fiction, a dream of decadence and sensuality, and the dark blue man – a mémoire and a
reminder of le temps perdu.
He is integral to the meaning of blue in Jansen van
Vuuren’s work. “Ever since I can remember, blue has
had a mysterious and magical quality for me, although I
cannot explain it intellectually. Perhaps it has something
to do with the complex chemical qualities of blue, such
as Prussian blue”, he says. Blue is the colour of the sky,
water and mountains, of irises and lizards, of music and
of Mondays; it is the colour of sadness and vulnerability;
it conjures up the magic of Egyptian lapis lazuli and
the melancholy of nineteenth-century French Symbolist
paintings. Blue has associations with decadence, but it
is also the most spiritual of colours. The use of a single
hue to create a mood was essentially a Symbolist device
and one which was to influence the paintings of Pablo
Picasso (1881-1973) during his Blue Period. In Jansen
van Vuuren’s paintings and drawings it contributes
to the eeriness and nostalgia, to the longing and the
loneliness which exist among the beauty of the irises, the
exoticism of the interiors and even the grandeur of the
Cape Peninsula or the river Seine. For him blue is also
the colour of in-between – the time between day and
night, between waking and sleeping, when the blue man
appears. In this potent ‘blue hour’ anything is possible –
innocence may not survive, presences may be felt rather
than seen, external and internal vision may merge.
More than forty years after he organised his first exhibition in his home town, Louis
Jansen van Vuuren has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in South Africa
and throughout the world, and he has had resounding success in all his individual and joint
endeavours. Unlike many artists who leave the country of their birth and who are forgotten
at home while they strive to build careers abroad, Jansen van Vuuren has continued to
exhibit in South Africa after his departure. Having been represented on international group
shows since 1972, and opening doors in Paris with a solo exhibition in 1998, his career has
flourished in South Africa and elsewhere. This is cause for feasting, for the feast of life is
just beginning.
23
Fig 25Into the Night
Oil on canvas
On current exhibition
LOUIS
JANSEN
VAN feast
VUUREN
1–28 February 2009
60th Birthday Celebration Exhibition
Into the Night
Oil on canvas
100 X 100 cm
24
25
he Feast
T
Oil on canvas
100 X 150 cm
26
27
Irises I
Oil on canvas
40 X 60 cm
Irises II
Oil on canvas
40 X 60 cm
Sunset
Oil on canvas
100 X 100 cm
28
29
The Bridge
Oil on canvas
120 X 150 cm
30
31
The Mountain
Pastel on cotton paper
100 X 70 cm
Alexander’s Bridge
Pastel on cotton paper
100 X 70 cm
32
33
Jonkershoek
Pastel on cotton paper
70 X 100 cm
Lion’s Head
Pastel on cotton paper
70 X 100 cm
34
35
Pont Neuf
Pastel on cotton paper
70 X 100 cm
Franschhoek
Pastel on cotton paper
100 X 70 cm
36
37
Hanukkah I
Pastel on cotton paper
100 X 70 cm
Hanukkah II
Pastel on cotton paper
45 X 65 cm
38
Hanukkah III
Pastel on cotton paper
45 X 65 cm
39
From the Series: NEST
Love and the Dove
Mixed medium with fragment of original early
19th century Aubusson hand painted carton
(preparatory gauche painting for a tapestry)
100 cm radius
From the Series: NEST
Yellow Apple Swinging
Pastel and gauche on cotton paper
70 X 100 cm
40
41
From the Series: NEST
Bok Bok
Mixed medium with fragment of original early
19th century Aubusson hand painted carton
(preparatory gauche painting for a tapestry)
100 X 100 cm
From the Series: NEST
Green Apple Swinging
Pastel on cotton paper
100 X 70 cm
42
43
The Whale and the Moon
Pastel on cotton paper
70 X 35 cm
Star
Pastel on cotton paper
50 X 60 cm
44
45
LOUIS JANSEN VAN VUUREN
Major Public and Corporate Art Collections
Shamwari Collection
The Bright Foundation
South African National Gallery, Cape Town
Engen, Cape Town
SRG Building, Cape Town
Boland Bank, Cape Town
Vodacom, Cape Town
Ellerman House, Cape Town
Santam, Cape Town
Investec Bank, Cape Town
Cape of Good Hope Bank,
SASOL Ltd, Johannesburg
First National Bank, Johannesburg
Rand Merchant Bank, Johannesburg
Anglo Vaal, Johannesburg
University of Stellenbosch
University of Western Cape
University of Bloemfontein
University of Cape Town
Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA (Print Collection)
Constitutional Court Collection, Johannesburg.
Extensively represented in private art collections in South Africa, Europe and the USA