Alfred A. de Pass and the South African National Gallery, 1926-49

Many public art collections have depended heavily, in their early years, on gifts from private collectors and this was certainly true of the South African National Gallery. Its most prolific benefactor in the early twentieth century was the British-South African collector Alfred A de Pass who presented over 240 works in a variety of media between 1926 and 1949.

Photograph of Alfred A. de Pass (1861-1952)

Before de Pass began presenting, the gallery had only been able to afford work by minor South African artists, plus occasional purchases from London’s Royal Academy shows and the like. French art, so highly regarded at the time, was beyond its budget. De Pass rectified this with gifts of paintings by artists such as Boudin, Daubigny and Fantin-Latour, and works on paper by Harpignies, Delacroix, Courbet and the sculptor Rodin.

Ignace Henri Jean Fantin-Latour (1836-1904), Still Life (date unknown), oil on canvas, 610x505mm, presented 1927

Eugène Boudin (1824-1898), On the Beach (1860s), oil on wood, 215x355mm, presented 1927

He presented works by English artists such as Augustus John, James Jebusa Shannon, William Strang and Laura Knight who, if not avant-garde, were nevertheless more interesting than the traditionalists who had been collected to date. He presented, also, a number of fine prints by old masters including Durer, Rembrandt and Goya, and added to these a group of woodcuts by renowned nineteenth-century Japanese printmakers Hiroshige and Hokusai. 

Augustus John (1878-1961), Portrait of Miss Pettigrew (date unknown), oil on canvas, 915x716mm, presented 1928

James Jebusa Shannon (1862-1923), The Purple Stocking (c.1894), oil on canvas, 570x465mm, presented 1927

William Strang (1859-1921), Portrait of Lord Curzon (1903), crayon on paper, 418x271mm, presented 1927

Among the most significant of the de Pass gifts, however, were the works of upcoming contemporary South African artists, barely represented there to date. Artworks by Wolf Kibel, Gregoire Boonzaier and Irma Stern offered gallery visitors a view of a new national school that would ally South Africa with progressive developments overseas.