WENNING (1949) - inscribed by artist and author Gregoire Boonzaier to SA publishing legend Koos Human and his wife

Publisher's red cloth binding with embossed gilt titles on front panel. Illustrated dust jacket.

58pp + 83 plates.

Inscribed on the front endpaper "Aan Koos en Trewhella, met komplimente en beste wense, van Gregoire, Onrustrivier, Julie 1990." (To Koos & Trewhella, with compliments and best wishes, from Gregoire, Onrus River, July 1990).

Koos Human was a legendary Afrikaans book publisher who, along with Leon Rousseau, established the publishing house Human & Rousseau. The success of the firm can in part be ascribed to the close relationships that Human maintained with his authors and the emphasis he placed on the production quality of books. He was known as the godfather of the 'Sestigers', a sixties group of Afrikaans authors including Ingrid Jonker, André Brink, Breyten Breytenbach, Etienne Leroux etc., who, through their writings, challenged Afrikaner conservatism and the political status quo of the period. Human managed the firm for 35 years until his retirement in 1994. In 1986 he married his second wife, Trewhella Cameron.

Gregoire Boonzaier was a famous South African artist known for his landscape, portrait and still life paintings. He was one of the founders of the New Group of artists who, in 1937, started challenging the traditional and conservative views of the South African Society of Artists. Boonzaier was an exponent of Cape Impressionism.

From the front flap:

'It has been said that artists do not reach true greatness until after they are dead. Immortality often walks hand in hand with those who pour out their lives in a fleeting urge to express the beauty they see around them.

So it was with Pieter Wenning who came from Holland to the mundane occupation of bookseller's clerk in Pretoria. The urge to paint became an obsession but it was only at the age of 42 that he was able to devote all his time to art. Already in failing health, he had only six years of feverish and uninterrupted activity before dying in poverty.

His legacy of some 300 oils and 1,000 watercolours and drawings captured the respect of the nation and prices rocketed in one of the most sensational treasure hunts in the history of South Africa.'