• A FIGURE WALKING IN SAND DUNES
  signed Hugo Naude lower left
  oil on panel
  28 x 38.5cm; 11 x 15 1/4in
  46 x 56.5cm; 18 x 22 1/4in (framed)
  
  Property of a Private Collector, Cambridge
  

Provenance
Private Collection (acquired from the artist)
Thence by descent to The DinksFãStan Private Collection

Hugo Naudé is a quintessential South African impressionist and is one of South Africa’s pioneer artists and is largely regarded as the country’s first professional artist.

As evidenced in the present work, Naudé painted en plein air with bold hues below, and clear blue skies above, capturing the landscapes he encountered with great confidence and a unique freshness never-before-seen in his home country. This artistic movement came to be known as Cape Impressionism, represented by several renowned South African Cape painters who developed a style unique to South Africa.

Author of the definitive text on South African art, Esmé Berman describes how his work developed from a more academic style in his portraits, where “tone was all important, brushstrokes were masked and plastic volumes smoothly modelled by means of gentle transitions from light to dark”, to a looser style with more individualised brushwork, freer composition, sun-drenched colour and a focus on “the natural abundance of the verdant countryside around him” (Berman, 1983).

Naudé was born and raised on his family's farm, Aan de Doorns, in Worcester, Western Cape – an area whose dramatic landscape inspired much of his output throughout his life.

In 1889 he travelled to London where he trained at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art, and the following year he continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich. Whilst in Europe, Naudé spent a year in Fontainebleau where he lived and worked amongst the Barbizon School of painters. Just as the French group inspired the likes of Monet in his explorations of Impressionism, they also inspired Naudé to create his own Cape Impressionist style – one which was adopted by generations of artists who followed him, including Gregoire Boonzaier, Pierneef, and Ruth Prowse.

Although he travelled extensively in Southern Africa on painting expeditions, he lived in Worcester in the Western Cape for almost all his life, and his house and garden became a community art centre after his death.

His work is included in the collections of the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town, the Pretoria Art Museum, the Johannesburg Art Gallery, the William Humphreys Gallery in Kimberley, the Albany Museum in Grahamstown, and the Durban Art Gallery among others.

Esmé Berman, Art & Artists of South Africa, Cape Town, 1983, p.304