FETCHING WOOD, TESSELAARSDAL

Signed, dated and numbered in pencil.

Sheet size: 24.2 x 19cm.

Framed

The year 1956 was a turning point in the life of Peter Clarke: it was the year he finally decided to become an artist. To start this new period in his life, Clarke went to Tesselaarsdal, near Caledon in the Overberg district, for three or four months at the end of 1956. The small rural village at the foot of the Hartebeesberge was an appropriately picturesque spot to inspire a painter.
Clarke's delight in the countryside is palpable in his descriptions of working there in his 1964 essay "Winter Shepherding" (which is included in "Plain Furniture" as per previous lot).
He was to return there every spring from 1956 to 1960, staying till well into summer. In the years that followed, Tesselaarsdal remained a significant source of inspiration for Clarke's art, his writing and his photography. It came to be a place of special significance for Clarke: "My heart is in this place and I love it - There is always a place, a kind of extra-special one, that a man sees and is attracted to and loves intensely - because that particular place holds everything that his soul seeks."
The sketches Clarke made in Tesselaarsdal provided material for many future works, and he continued making rural images out of his head long after he stopped going on his annual visits. Even though he had not visited the area for many years, it remained a cherished memory of idyllic stability that is reflected in many works.
(Source: Listening to Distant Thunder, The Art of Peter Clarke; Philippa Hobbs and Elizabeth Rankin, 2011, Standard Bank of South Africa, Johannesburg)