Description

Provenance: Private Collection

Exhibitions: “The Modern Palimpsest: Envisioning South African Modernity”, Graham’s Fine Art Gallery, Johannesburg, 2008.

Illustrated: Graham’s Fine Art Gallery. 2008. The Modern Palimpsest: Envisioning South African Modernity. Johannesburg. P 86 & 87.

Maud Sumner was born in 1902 in Johannesburg, South Africa. She studied literature at Oxford and art in both London and Paris. In Paris, she studied under Maurice Denis who was one of the leading members of the Nabis, a group of French painters strongly influenced by “Gauguin’s expressive use of colour and rhythmic pattern” (Chilvers 2004: 491). Esmé Berman (1983: 443) argues that Denis proved to be very influential in terms of her “aesthetic outlook”.

Although Sumner lived and worked mainly in Europe, she regularly returned to South Africa to exhibit new work. Berman (1983: 443) quotes her assertion that “as a person I am South African and English, but as a painter I am French.” This statement exemplifies the prevailing attitude of the time, namely, that in order to be properly trained, South African artists should study abroad.

Marion Arnold (1996: 122) makes the following comment in relation to Maud Sumner’s work, most especially her portraits: “Their selfimages are social documents as well as resemblances. They reveal greater or lesser degrees of introspection and assurance, and inaugurate a ritual of sight and insight for both artist and viewer.”

Although this painting is not a self-portrait, we can read in this work some of this “introspection and assurance”. The influence of the Intimists, a style of painting “featuring intimate domestic scenes, more or less Impressionist in technique” (Chilvers 2004: 359), is clear in this painting. Although the background does not particularly describe a domestic scene, the sense of intimacy between subject, painter and viewer is clear.

The subject of the painting does not gaze out at the viewer, but rather concentrates intensely on the activity with which she is engaged. She withdraws from the viewer but, at the same time, there is a strong sense of the contemplation with which the viewer might study this portrait. The sitter is engaged in a private world of reverie.

One could read the portrait as exhibiting dualities, one of “introspection and assurance” and of light and dark as metaphors for this state. This reading can be reinforced by Sumner’s use of high contrast in the painting, that is, the whiteness of the sitter’s body in contrast to the blackness of her dress, a treatment of colour which is echoed by the background of the painting. Indeed, as Arnold (1996: 123) suggests, “…through art, [Sumner] reconciles dualities within herself.”

Bibliography: Chilvers, I. 2004. Oxford Dictionary of Art. Oxford University Press
Berman, E. 1984. Art & Artists of South Africa: an Illustrated Biographical Dictionary and Historical Survay of Painters, Sculptors & Graphic Artists since 1875. A.A. Balkema, Cape Town.
Arnold, M. 1996. Women and Art in South Africa. David Philip, Johannesburg and Cape Town.