Title: Portrait of a Malay man
Medium: Oil on canvas board
Signed P W Wenning Right bottom
Unframed: 37.5cm x 34cm
Framed: 52cm x 49cm
Pieter Wenning had intense sympathy for the poor and suffering and was interested in their environment. This led the artist directly to the Malay quarter when he stayed in Cape Town for his 3-month residency in 1916 organized by the cartoonist and lifelong friend Daniel Boonzaier. Today he is regarded as the first outstanding painter of the Malay Quarter (Boonzier & Lipshitz 1949:32). It is also told that he was dearly loved and excepted by the Malay community. The Malay women frequently brought him tea on hot days (Boonzier & Lipshitz 1949:34).
