Title: The Travellers
Medium: Oil on canvas on board
Signed
Unframed: 59.5cm x 90cm
Framed: 78.5cm x 107cm
The subject for the painting, The Travellers, may be from a Transkei sketching trip in 1946. The background of mountains and sky is unusual for her. She was known for using flat neutral backgrounds with all the emphasis placed on the portraits of the figures in the work. In the painting the man carries a stick over his shoulder from which a calabashes and other belongings are hanging, and the women carries a rolled-up grass mat and a baby on her back. This family was clearly moving with only the most essential items they could carry with them. From the late 19th century when gold and diamonds were discovered in the North of South Africa strict tax laws were implemented to force rural men into hard labour working in the mines. The 1940s marked the hight of this long period of exploitation with the start of the Apartheid era in 1948 (Reynolds 1989:170-171).
