1. Pieter Willem Frederick Wenning was a South African painter and etcher, considered to be the progenitor of the style of Cape Impressionism.
22 Facts About Pieter Wenning
1. 2.
Pieter Wenning was born in The Hague, the son of Heerke and Elizabeth Wenning.
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The family moved to Leeuwarden when Wenning was aged five years.
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Pieter Wenning's father owned a shop where he dealt in artists' materials, pictures and prints.
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Pieter Wenning had a cousin, Ype Wenning, who was a well known Frisian painter, thus coming into contact with painting at an early age.
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Pieter Wenning had married a young widow, Johanna Hillegonda Kramer, on 3 September 1898, and she had two children from a previous marriage.
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Pieter Wenning recovered, but would suffer the consequences to his heart for the rest of his life.
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When De Bussy opened a branch in Johannesburg, they approached Pieter Wenning to manage the art department.
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Pieter Wenning brought with him etchings and reproductions by French and Dutch masters, visiting leading Cape artists and collectors in the hope of interesting them.
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Pieter Wenning arrived at the Cape on 2 March 1916, met by Boonzaier, who had rented a large room in Government House, Newlands Avenue.
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Pieter Wenning worked every day, painting en plein air, completing about 40 paintings on this first visit.
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In bad weather Pieter Wenning painted still lifes in Boonzaier's study, with objects like an old Chinese Buddha or a Ming bowl.
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Pieter Wenning took a studio at the Vineyard Hotel, Newlands, the original home built by Lady Anne Barnard in 1799.
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Pieter Wenning was attracted to the Malay Quarter and was the first outstanding painter of it.
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Trips to Lourenco Marques and Durban followed, but by the winter of 1918, Pieter Wenning was back in the Cape, where an influenza epidemic was raging.
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Pieter Wenning's health failing him, Wenning was moved to the Somerset Hospital in Cape Town on 19 July 1920.
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Pieter Wenning was moved to the Zuid Afrikaanse Hospitaal in Pretoria and died there, of tuberculosis, on 24 January 1921.
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Pieter Wenning has the distinction of being the progenitor of a style of painting often referred to as Cape Impressionism.
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Pieter Wenning excelled at the quiescent landscape, nature at rest.
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Pieter Wenning's method was to complete a work en plein air and with his subject before him.
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Yet the myth of Pieter Wenning's spontaneity is effectively exploded by the existence of a large number of studies, sketches and unfinished drawings.
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Pieter Wenning's works are included in a number of major collections:.