Signed and indistinctly dated “Naudé 1937” lower right, oil on board 34 x 44cm excl.frame; 57.5 x 68 x 4cm incl.frame. Inscribed with the artist’s name and title on a Pretoria Art Museum label adhered to the reverse for the Retrospective Exhibition 1969, cat.no.122 (Strauss & Co. lot 84, 19 March 2024).
In 1937 Naudé completed a series of paintings of the Hex River.83
This one was commissioned by the Worcester Chamber of Commerce and gifted to the South Africa House, London:84
Black & white illustration in Worcester Standard & Advertiser Tribute 1941, op.cit.
It looks identical to Kanetvlei
Photo of framed painting sold, kindly supplied by Carmen Welz. Signed “Naudé” lower right. No further details yet. All attempts to contact the South African House, London failed.
The Hex River Valley is like a study for this important commission:
Signed “Naudé” lower left, oil on woodpanel 39.5 x 29.5cm excl.frame (Strauss & Co. lot 245, 16 May 2011). Artnet.
Their colourful Autumn scenery suggests that the following paintings of the Hex River Valley and Kanetvlei could have been painted around the same time?
Signed “Naudé” lower right, oil 72 x 55cm (Stephan Welz, Art at Auction in South Africa. The Art Market Review 1969-1995, p.128, 7 June 1993. Saxonwold: Art Link (Pty) Ltd, 1996).
Signed “H.Naudé” lower right, oil on board 43 x 58cm/11.9 x 22.8in (Stephan Welz & Co. lot 464, 27 March 2001 Cape Town). The catalogue notes that “the farm in the middle distance is Kanetvlei. This painting relates closely to two other works sold by us; lot 302, 2 May 1984 and lot 51, 7 June 1993” (Stephan Welz & Co. In Association with Sotheby’s, Decorative & Fine Arts, p.84). Unfortunately I have not been able to see these related works.
Signed “Naudé” lower right, oil on fibre boards laid down on panel 34 x 43.5 excl.frame; 54 x 62.5 x 6cm incl.frame (Strauss & Co. lot 27, March 2024).
Signed and dated “Naudé (1938)” lower right, oil on canvas 40 x 49cm (Strauss & Co. lot 503, 6 March 2017, Cape Town). Retrospective Exhibition cat.no.123.
Watsonias by a stream, near Worcester before March 1938
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Signed “Hugo Naudé” lower right, oil on canvas 24 x 39cm. Provenance: Commissioned by George Alfred Quénet, Esq of Worcester, as a wedding present to his son Vincent (later Sir Vincent) Quénet, March 1938. Property of Lady Quénet (Sotheby’s cat.no.248, 14 April 1986, Cape Town). THANKS to the late Julie te Groen for her list of Hugo Naudé paintings in Sotheby’s catalogues at the South African Library, Cape Town (letter of 22 October 1986 to “Wollie” Naudé). See also Johans Borman Fine Art 8/44: oil on board 28 x 39 signed bottom left, sold 2014.85
Signed and dated “Naudé ‘39” lower left, oil on panel 23 x 28cm excl.frame; 48 x 53 x 3.5cm incl.frame. Provenance: The Professor Leon Strydom Collection (Strauss & Co. lot 273, 10 August 2021).
23 x 19 x 1.5cm. Inner cover signed by the artist and dated September 1939 and further inscribed with Piet van Heerden’s name and address. Contains drawings by both artists. Some of van Heerden’s drawings are signed and dated (Strauss & Co. lot 297, 9 April 2018).
Signed “Naudé” lower right, oil on board 40 x 54cm excl.frame; 60 x 74 x 4cm incl.frame (Aspire Art lot 18, 16 November 2023 Johannesburg). Invaluable.
This was apparently his last work according to the 1945 Memorial Exhibition catalogue no.61.86
There is however also the unsigned and undated Unfinished Landscape, Caledon
Oil on board 25.5 x 20.5cm (Adèlé Naudé, p.60 Fig.47) or 24.5 x 19.5cm; 56 x 51 x 3cm incl.frame (Strauss & Co. lot 719, 8 November 2020 and Stephan Welz & Co. lot 575, 27 October 2008, Cape Town) or 24 x 20cm (Retrospective Exhibition cat.no.109 and 5th Avenue Auctioneers lot 174, 17 July 2016, Johannesburg).
Should any more dated paintings come to light, this website will be updated…
Ibid. and Tribute to Naudé in the Worcester Standard & Advertiser, p.8: “one of the last big works from the brush of Hugo Naude, this scene at Sandhills” (Brown Family Papers BC 597 G29 UCT Libraries’ Special Collections).↩︎
Elsewhere titled Wild cannas in Spring but the plants look more like Watsonias?↩︎
Brown Family Papers BC 597 B8 in the University of Cape Town Libraries’ Special Collections.↩︎
