PIERNEEF, JACOB HENDRIK

Jacob Hendrik Pierneef (August 13, 1886-October 4, 1957), famous South African painter, was born in Pretoria and spent most of his life there.

PHOTO CAPTION: Jacob Hendrik Pierneef . SOURCE: EA Library.

Pierneef’s father was Dutch and his mother was Afrikaans. When the British forces occupied Pretoria during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), the Pierneef family left for the Netherlands. From an early age, the young Pierneef showed a keen interest in art.

During the family’s stay in the Netherlands, Pierneef studied the art of drawing at the Academy for Art in Rotterdam. Pierneef made the acquaintance, while in the Netherlands, of a manufacturer of paints, who taught him how to mix his own paints.

On returning to South Africa in 1902, Pierneef worked in a local Pretoria tobacco store, but his keen interest in drawing led him to change his job. He found employment at the State Library in Pretoria where he had more leisure time to draw and paint. In the meantime, Pierneef also studied woodcut techniques and another famous South African artist, Frans Order, introduced Pierneef to the art of oil painting.

Pierneef’s art soon became renowned and in 1920 the Teachers’ Training College of Heidelberg offered him a post as lecturer in art. From 1923 Pierneef devoted himself entirely to his artistic endeavours. By then he had already become a very well known artist in South Africa. His art had an immediate appeal and was increasingly accepted as interpretative of the South African landscape.

In particular his peculiar technique of painting indigenous trees, of which he had great knowledge, made him well known. In 1932 Pierneef was commissioned to paint 32 panels of the new Johannesburg railway station and two years later he left for London where he painted a series of panels in South Africa House.

In 1940 he was again commissioned to paint two large pictures for the magistrate’s court in Johannesburg. Pierneef is considered to have been one of South Africa’s finest artists. Though aware of the great artistic movements and debates in Europe, particularly during time spent there in the mid-1920s, Pierneef’s home audience did not provide a ready experimental body.

One might surmise that this innate South African conservatism led Pierneef ultimately to maintain his strongly geometric style and his focus on landscape painting. These conventions of subject and style made and maintained his reputation. Shortly before his death, the University of Pretoria conferred an honorary doctorate in literature and philosophy upon him.

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