Near and Far: journeying through a private collection

How many ways can a landscape be rendered and interpreted? And what do these depictions reveal to us? Near and Far: a collection of landscapes across time, brings together a selection of modern and contemporary landscape artists into a rare, public exhibition.

Currently on exhibition at Keyes Art Mile’s Gallery 1, Near and Far is curated by curator and art consultant Ann Roberts, and spans work from the 1800s through to the last few decades. Collectively, the exhibition provides a long and multifaceted view of the SA landscape.

The 54 works on exhibition are all drawn from the Tortilis Collection, an extensive private collection based in Johannesburg. This selection represents only a portion of the full collection, says Roberts, who explains that the exhibition initially emerged as a practical solution to the storage of the work.

“The Tortilis Collection is currently being reorganised, and there was a need to temporarily rehouse some of the works. We realised that this would be an excellent opportunity to show the collection. So, we pulled out, almost at random, a selection of works and started from there.”

As a result, the exhibition follows a kind of curatorial happenstance. Busy abstract works sit alongside quintessentially still landscape scenes, and Highveld koppies jostle up against ravines and surreal desert-scapes. Together, the works become a collective, multifaceted view of the history of the land through the lenses of ecology, temporality, and style.

Through the landscapes of Thomas Baines and JH Pierneef we witness the “empty” landscapes of the past — something we now know to be a painterly fiction that contributed to the myth of unoccupied land. The works also provide a long view of a changing ecology, showing verdant landscapes — albeit somewhat embellished as well — irrevocably changed by an increasingly urgent climate crisis. Then there are the less obvious revelations and incidental discoveries among the works.

“Part of the joy of working with a non-selling exhibition like this is that you can afford to play around with it. You can have this really spectacular Pierneef next to a relatively unknown photographic artist and see what happens when they sit alongside one another,” says Roberts.      

In one unexpected pairing, there is a dual attempt at layering across time. A painting by Cecil Higgs, Landscape with trees, is an exercise in overpainting. Alive with colour and gesture, Higgs’ technique is full of layering, covering and reworking. In one corner, a tree is only vaguely visible under a swath of paint, disguising it in the hillside. Right next to the Higgs work is an exercise in photographic layering, Amelia Smith’s 100 trees which, as the title indicates, shows 100 images of a tree, each one layered and superimposed over the other. This demonstration of time and sedimentation across different eras, media, and ways of working, is just one of the peripheral conversations that emerge from this selection of works.

Perhaps the greatest value of an exhibition like this one is down to the very basic level of access. These are works that are rarely seen by an art-loving public. 

In this show alone, there are many of SA’s best-known Modern and Contemporary artists. The likes of Maud Sumner, Jan Ernst Abraham Volschenk, JH Pierneef, Walter Battis and Thomas Baines through to Cecil Skotness and Larry Scully are included. There are also those names who’ve somewhat receded over time, including Francois Krige and Pranas Domsaitas. A handful of international artists populate the exhibition, too, including Utagawa Hiroshige, whose Driving rain at Shono print is dated 1833. 

And while the exhibition is largely populated by male painters, women artists are well-represented, too, as far as SA collections go. In addition to Higgs and Sumner, there is Ruth Everard, Amelia Smith and Nicola Leigh. Separate from the exhibition, but also drawn from the Tortilis Collection, is the selection of Maggie Laubser portraits in the Keyes Atrium.

Why mention all of this? In Johannesburg, where public art institutions and museums are currently ill-equipped to fulfil the basic function of connecting the public to its country’s artistic history, the commercial gallery space, the auction house, or the private collectors are the ones who facilitate the showing of these works to new audiences, and addressing the real need for public engagement with SA’s art history.

Keyes may be located in Johannesburg’s commercial art hub, separate from the city and surrounds, but it has developed a young and engaged audience base — its First Thursdays events in particular see dedicated crowds coming through to view and engage with the exhibitions on show.

The works in Near and Far represent only a sliver of the country’s narrative, but they are still edifying, with many of them having been included in museum-level shows at institutions such as the Norval Foundation and Zeitz MOCAA. Importantly, Near and Far isn’t a one-off either. As an exhibition model, it’s the first of many.

“There’s so much to be mined here, but we’re also trying not to come out with all of the greatest hits so to speak,” says Roberts. “These exhibitions will become opportunities to show these works to a broader public. There will be future shows, also drawn from this collection, and the idea is to keep activating this and other collections through exhibitions like this.”

• Near and Far: a collection of landscapes across time is on at Keyes Art Mile’s Gallery 1 until May 25. The exhibition is open for viewing from 10am- 4pm from Wednesdays to Fridays, and from 9am-1pm on Saturdays.