Gabriel de Jongh

Biography

In 1937, in Hermanus, the painter Tinus de Jongh, who was exhibiting his own work there, suggested that his son hang a few of his watercolours alongside. Gabriel’s twenty sheets sold on the first day.

Tinus was both his teacher and his strict critic.

Gabriel Cornelis de Jongh was born on 6 April 1913 in Amsterdam, the only son of the landscape painter Tinus de Jongh. In 1921 his father went to South Africa and settled in a cottage in Fish Hoek; his wife and children followed six months later. The boy went with his father on walks around the Cape Peninsula in search of subjects. In 1924 the family moved to Rondebosch, and he attended the boys’ schools in Rondebosch and Wynberg, matriculating in 1930. Before starting work at The Cape Times he spent a year learning watercolour technique from his father. All his free time went on small watercolours: the Malay Quarter, Cape Town docks, Table Mountain. He played golf and tennis, the latter well enough to represent The Cape Times in tournaments, belonged to the South African Turf Club and owned a racehorse called “Glorious”.

His education came in several short courses: the Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town, a course in woodcarving under a Cape Town teacher, Meyerowitz, a course in photo-lithography at The Cape Times, and later the Slade School of Art in London. After finishing his apprenticeship at the newspaper he became interested in colour reproduction of fine art under the guidance of Charles Hardy, and at the same time began to experiment with etching. After the success in Hermanus, his work was regularly shown by art societies in the Eastern Cape, the Orange Free State and Johannesburg. In 1938 he married Mercia Maria Kotze and moved into a house next to his parents.

When the Second World War began he volunteered for service, but the newspaper kept him because of his skill in photo-lithography. He served in the Civil Defence Corps with his father until 1942, when the Dutch government called up all Dutch citizens living abroad. By then his father was ill, and Gabriel was given leave to be with him; Tinus de Jongh died on 17 July 1942. The son was assigned to the Eighth Contingent of the Royal Netherlands Brigade and arrived in Britain on the “Sabajak” on 16 December 1942. While waiting to be sent out, he drew the English countryside and in the evenings studied at the Slade School, which had been moved to Windermere.

On 5 August 1944 he left for Normandy. As a war artist he depicted scenes in France, England, Belgium and the Netherlands. He was wounded by shell fragments from anti-personnel shells, declared medically unfit, and on 12 June 1945 returned to South Africa and to The Cape Times. What he had been through in the war affected him badly.

In 1946 he bought an army truck converted into a caravan and set off with his wife and son Tinus on a long painting tour of the Eastern Cape, Basutoland and Natal. At the Cathedral Peak Hotel in the Drakensberg, the owner, Albert van der Riet, persuaded him to hold an exhibition there and then. I think this episode was the turning point from watercolour to oils: that is how his biographers describe it.

Later he travelled at length in Britain, Europe, South America and East Africa, but stayed loyal to the landscapes of the Western Cape, which his descendants jokingly called the “boompie-bergie-huisie-thing” (“little tree, little mountain, little house”). He bought a boat, the Pocketa, and explored the waters around the Cape in it. A painting of Cape Point hangs in the clubhouse of the Marlin and Tuna Club, of which he was a member. He worked in oil, watercolour, ink and pencil: landscapes, still lifes, seascapes, wildlife, and occasionally religious subjects.

Among his commissions were the Villa Dubochet in Clarens, where President Paul Kruger of the Transvaal died in exile, and Boekenhoutfontein, Kruger’s historic homestead near Rustenburg; Jan van Riebeeck’s landing in Table Bay; the 1963 volcanic eruption on Tristan da Cunha; and a canvas measuring 1.8 by 2.4 metres showing an elephant named Ndlulamithi. His works are in public and private collections in many countries.

In 1981 he founded the Tinus de Jongh Memorial Gallery in Stellenbosch, which became a well-known stop on the wine route. Ten years later, when the Lanzerac Hotel changed hands, the gallery closed. Gabriel de Jongh died on 11 March 2004.