Johannes Meintjes (South Africa 1923-1980)
Sunbather

ink on paper

Artwork date: 1960
Signature details: signed and dated
Exhibited: The Schweickerdt Gallery, Pretoria, Exhibition of Paintings by Johannes Meintjes, 3 to 15 March 1961, catalogue number 32. The Schweickerdt Gallery, Durban, 8 to 15 May
Literature: Meintjes J.P. The Diary of Johannes Meintjes Part V (Die Dagboek van Johannes Meintjes Deel V). Unpublished, p.206.

(1)

37.5 x 31 cm

Miss C. Rault, Durban, purchased from the Henri Lidchi Gallery, 1961

Notes:

By 1960 Johannes Meintjes had established himself as a major South African painter: 1960 was the year he participated in two group exhibitions – with Walter Battiss, Alexis Preller, Maud Sumner and Maurice van Essche; and with Otto Klar, Cecily Sash and Giuseppe Cattaneo. That same year he had three solo exhibitions, in Pretoria, East London and Johannesburg. At the age of 37 Meintjes had seized the imagination of his viewers by aiming at visions of the inner self: To him a work of art depended on the intellectual and emotional depth of the artist and the emotional reaction of the viewer; on capturing an inner world that would be more than a mere copy of nature. This he achieved by means of “bold, daring, sweeping use of colour, (…) sheer vitality and drama and reckless imagination, (…) form and composition of bodies that no other painter had ever attempted, the richness of textures … (and) the evocative placement of figures in the landscape” (McCaul-Dommisse 1990:1).Sunbather, painted in 1960, highlights some of these aspects by foregrounding the figure of a young man, occupying the canvas except for the vibrant yellow and white colour on both sides of the figure’s head. Like so many of Meintjes’ paintings, this portrait takes on the role of a memento, in this case referring to the weekend of 5 and 6 November 1960 he spent with Ken Howard in Magaliesburg. In his unpublished diary, he wrote on Monday 7 November 1960: “This morning I feel the effect of some serious sunburn. We spent the weekend in Magaliesburg and stayed too long in the sun at the water.”Instead of being just a portrait of a young man soaking up the sun’s rays, Meintjes seems to capture a particular experience, that singular moment that existed when the radiant sun was lighting up one side of the face, falling on a shoulder and forearms, picking up the blue undertones in the hair. “I derive much pleasure from my two new paintings,” Meintjes wrote in his diary after completing some new works, one being Sunbather: “My strength lies in my own kind of mythology – dream world-like, dream and melancholy, between expressionism and surrealism.” The eyes, averted to the left, to the shadowy side, alerts the viewer to an inner world of reverie, even of melancholy, emphasising Meintjes’ “own kind of mythology”.

Johan Myburg

Sources:

McCaul-Dommisse, H. (1990). Johannes Meintjes: Orpheus of SA Painting. In Johannes Meintjes: Artist, Author, Historian (1923-1980). Homage Exhibition. Rand Afrikaans University. 7.6.90-7.6.90. Johannesburg.