THE NEW GROUP

by

Esmé Berman

In 1936, Edward Roworth was once again elected President of the South African Society of Artists. By now, however, the younger generation was becoming more and more resentful of the reactionary forces which were dominating the Society and, by extension, tyrannising public taste.

In 1938, the year of Kibel’s death, a group of young Cape Town artists decided finally to break away from the Society and form an independent fellowship of modern spirits. They called themselves the New Group and announced their intention of “kicking against the junk” which symbolized South African obeisance to long-outmoded patterns of aesthetic thought.

The founders of the Group were the painters, Gregoire Boonzaier (1909-[2005]) Freida Lock (1902-1962) and Terence McCaw (1913-[1978]), and the sculptor, Lippy Lipshitz (1903-[1980]). They agreed at the outset to co-opt two likeminded painters from the Transvaal, Walter Batiss (1906-[1982]) and Alexis Preller (1911-[1975]), making an initial membership of six. As first Chairman, they elected Gregoire Boonzaier. 

Boonzaier’s own approach to painting was not as radical as any of the three embattled artists referred in the preceding chapter, but he proved to be an eminently effective spokesman for the pioneering cause. Indeed, his personal persistence in informing an unenlightened public---by means of lectures, demonstrations and exhibitions---was as influential as the New Group’s solidarity of purpose in bringing about a definite softening of popular resistance to the modern points of view.

The Group launched its programme with an exhibition of works by 17 invited artists, which opened in Cape Town on 4 May, 1938. That provocative and lively venture was followed by similar exhibitions in Pretoria and Johannesburg. Most of the artists selected for inclusion in those events participated as guests; acceptance as a member of the Group required formal nomination and election by secret ballot.

The outbreak of the World War II in 1939 did not obstruct the New Group’s progress. Indeed, the withdrawal of imported cultural stimulants increased South African awareness of, and dependence on, the homegrown product and the Group’s activities proceeded with even added vigour.

Inevitably, many careers were interrupted by military service, but several New Group members served in the capacity of Official War Artists. Most notable among them were portraitists Neville Lewis (1895-1972), the first to be appointed, in 1940; François Krige (1913-[1994]) and Terence McCaw [1913-1978].

During the next few years, both membership and influence expanded rapidly; but at no stage did the Group exhibit any uniformity of style or viewpoint. The artists who were drawn into its ranks were united solely in their aim to promote a more receptive climate for contemporary artistic forms.

However, there was one factor common to the background of most members: almost everyone of them had spent a period of study among the modern European galleries or in the more progressive studios and art schools. The experience may not have brought about any radical transformation of their personal vision, but it served to introduce additional dimensions into South African artistic styles.

Trends in Paris and London. We have touched briefly on the development of Expressionism in Germany and elsewhere; but we must not forget that cultural tides are made up of many currents, often flowing simultaneously. Expressionism was but one of these and while that movement was occurring, other currents were developing and other styles were taking shape in Europe.

Since discussion of the European schools is relevant only in as far as it illuminates some of the influences affecting South African art, we cannot here consider all the fascinating aspects of the modern movements. Only passing reference can be made to the later variations on Impressionism; to the Fauvist movement which began in the early 1900s; and to the better known, but perhaps less easily understood development of Cubism.

The focal point of most of these developments was Paris. It became customary, therefore, to refer to that multiplicity of movements as the School of Paris.

Although the geographical situation of the British Isles would appear to favour cross-pollination of artistic ideas between Britain and the European continent, British artists had, in fact, remained strangely aloof from the developments occurring in the School of Paris at the turn of the century. Odd traces of Impressionist influence had permeated the styles of artists such as Walter Richard Sickert and Phillip Wilson Steer. But for the most part, British art continued to adhere to earlier convention. A link with Neo-Impressionism was forged by Lucien Pissaro, son of Camille, who had settled in England in 1893. Yet it was not until the formation of the Camden Town Group in 1911, (and the Post-Impressionist Exhibition organized by Roger Fry in London that year) that any appreciable influence of modern styles began to manifest itself in British painting. Post-Impressionist and Fauvist trends took root in the works of artists such as Harold Gilman [1876-1919], Spencer Gore [1850-1906] and Matthew Smith [?-?]. (All of the above-mentioned artists are represented in the Johannesburg Art Gallery.)

Those developments were relevant to South Africa art because, during the years between the two World Wars, the English artists’ groups and schools of art became the training grounds of many young South Africans. Undoubtedly they came into contact also with the more independent styles of figures like Paul Nash [1889-1946], Ben Nicholson [1894-1982] and Christopher Wood [1901-1930]; but the prevailing influences resided in a kind of second-generation English adaptation of the earlier modern styles.

Of the young South African artists who elected to go to Paris to further their studies, very few were drawn toward Cubist, Constructivist or other formal modern approaches. They, too, tended to derive their inspiration from the various extensions and mutations of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist ideas.

Cape Impressionism. Although the New Group was merely a convenient association of independent individuals and in no way constituted a stylistic movement, there were nevertheless affinities apparent in the styles of some of its members. It is possible to discern a common tendency particularly in the paintings of several of the artists who were working in the Cape.

This similarity of attitude is not altogether surprising if we take into account the fact that three of the founders of the New Group—Boonzaier, Lock and McCaw had studied at the same two English arts schools between 1934 and 1937. In company with other members in their age group, they had been exposed to similar influences in London and all now worked in roughly similar surroundings in the Cape.

The effect of their shared backgrounds, their often shared admiration for particular artists and their mutual influence upon each other provides the closest approximation to a school of painting that has yet occurred in South African art. That phenomenon has been described as Cape Impressionism. Although the term is really a misnomer, because it suggests affiliations which do not exist, ii refers to common stylistic features deriving initially from the cross-fertilisation of French Impressionism and British naturalism, to which are added traces both of Post-Impressionism and of the influence of Pieter Wenning’s [1873-1921] individual style.

It is recognisable in the loosely descriptive handling of subject matter, in the use of sketchy broken colour, the dark meandering outline around most forms, the undulating skylines of the frequent townscapes and farmstead scenes and in the regular inclusions of fretted silhouettes of winter oaks and other trees in such compositions. Conspicuous exponents have been Boonzaier, McCaw and Lock, Ruth Prowse (1883-1967), in her later works, and Robert Broadley (1908-[1988]).

The characteristic features occurred repeatedly in paintings of the late 1930s and the Forties, at which time they were considered relatively advanced in relation to the popular prevailing styles. The painters whose works are illustrated here in black-and-white were selected alongside other subsequently-more-celebrated members of the New Group when South Africa was invited in 1948 to mount a national exhibition at the Tate Gallery in London.

Independent directions. While there was noticeable affinity between the so-called Cape Impressionists, there was even more conspicuous diversity in the styles and viewpoints exhibited by other members of the New Group, who included many highly independent figures. The controversial Maggie Laubser [1886-1973] had been elected to the Group in 1939; Batiss and Preller were anything but conformists, but they still continued to be active members; most of the ‘new’ South Africans referred to in the next chapter added their works to the variegated exhibitions; and among numerous women artists, Ruth Everard-Haden [1904-1992], Rosamund Everard [1907-1946], Maud Sumner [1902-1985], Cecil Higgs [1898-1986] and Mary Hillhouse [1908-1989] were notable contributors.

It was ultimately this very diversity which spelt the ending of the New Group. For, by the beginning of the Fifties, most of the more notable members had begun to feel constricted by the continuing affiliation with non-kindred spirits. The primary aim of presenting a solid front of modernism had now been served for more than a decade and friction was developing within their ranks. Already in 1949, two founder-members, Batiss and Lipshitz, had broken away and, with Maurice van Essche [1906-?], had started a South African branch of the International Art Club. The organization began to crumble and in 1953 the Group disbanded.

 

From: Esmé Berman, The Story of South African Painting, A. A. Balkema, Cape Town, 1975.