Maggie Maria Magdalena Laubser (1886 - 1973) was active/lived in South Africa, Europe. Maggie Laubser is known for Expressionist, naive-sophisticated still life, portrait and landscape painting.

Medium: Oil On Board
Size: 16" x 20"
Frame Size: 19 1/2" x 23 1/2"
Condition: Great, No Blemishes
Signature: Signed

Maggie Laubser's expressionistic paintings do not attempt to portray reality. They should always be appreciated as a personal expression of her unique view of the harmony of colours and forms in, as she called it, 'the miracle of creation'. Her paintings have often been criticized for being naïve and childlike, but these critics miss the spiritual undertone of her work, where she strives to celebrate and praise the harmonious qualities of the Earth, and all life on it, under a benevolent Creator. She is quoted in a 1939 interview, as saying that 'The privilege of bearing witness to these things in my simple way deeply satisfies me'.

Maggie was determined to represent her personal or inner image of reality in her work and was no longer concerned with simply portraying nature. She strove to give her work an expressive symbolic character by intensifying the colour and form of the imagery. Maggie also met Prof. Jäckles, a modern portrait painter, and worked with him for some time. This led to her painting a series of portraits of men and several women which were executed in true Expressionistic style - establishing her own idiom as an artist.
Maggie returned permanently to South Africa in 1924 and had her first solo exhibition at the Argus Gallery in Cape Town - it was a critical and financial disaster. Her unorthodox expressionistic ideas on colour and the brutal vigour of the forms were not easily accepted among the tame academic standards of the Cape.

Maggie remained undeterred in her approach, and persevered with her unique expressionist style and philosophy. She spent the next few years on the farm Oortmanspost, near Klipheuwel in the Malmesbury district, painting life around her - still life studies with flowers, portraits of the farm labourers and their children, cottages with ducks and farmyard scenes.

Her Swartland landscapes featured cattle, geese, pigs and figures with the occasional cottage against the backdrop of typical Boland fields and mountains. She also explored the coastal areas of the Cape, visiting and painting scenes from the fishing villages at Langebaan, Hermanus, Gansbaai, and Waenhuiskrans during 1928 to 1932.
Though Maggie rarely travelled again, she took working trips to the Transvaal, the Free State and Natal from the mid-thirties, and produced portraits of Indian and African women as well as some landscapes. Although some of her strongest works were portraits, she preferred to paint from memory without the subject in view, and her subject matter continued to be drawn from the pastoral scenes of her childhood.

In Art & Artists of South Africa, Esme Berman describes Maggie Laubser's work when she was nearly 60 years of age and a well established and respected artist, very aptly: "By the mid-40's Maggie Laubser had staked out her artistic territory: a world of simple images, in which the harmony of her unsophisticated and untroubled youth survived. She no longer ventured beyond this territory.

The favourite themes and scenes are tackled time and again; but, with repetition, the integration of shapes becomes less forceful, smooth curves replace the animated irregularity of outline, and the previously vibrant colours dissolve into sweetened pastel tints."
Maggie Laubser's career history serves as a testimony to her integrity as an artist - in her adherence to her personal vision and beliefs, she triumphed over the ridicule, hardship and hurt of years of rejection.

She continued to paint until her death at her home 'Altyd Lig' in the Strand in 1973.


PROVENANCE
private collection from Long Island

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