Visitors to Vergelegen Wine Estate in Somerset West have marvelled at its magnificent trees since the farm was established more than 300 years ago. The good news is that several of these arboreal treasures have been captured for posterity in a series of oil paintings by one of South Africa’s most talented tree artists.
Johannesburg-based Dorothy Clark, who is renowned for her oil on canvas works featuring trees, plants, bushes and succulents, recently completed eight artworks during a month-long residence at the 323-year-old estate.
Based in a cottage in the heart of the spectacular gardens, she had the rare privilege of devoting herself fully to capturing the essence of this provincial heritage site. Clark was frequently inspired to paint from 06:30 until 22:00, more than 17 hours on a single day.
Her subject matter included portrayals of a hollow old English oak, about 300 years old, believed to be the oldest living oak in Africa. There is also the Royal Oak, planted in 1928, a descendant of King Alfred’s oak trees at Blenheim Palace in England. Clark’s portrayal of this oak has a pink cloud in the background, as a fire was raging in the Helderberg at the time.
She was also inspired by the enormous camphor trees (Cinnamomum Camphora) in front of the homestead, all proclaimed national monuments in 1942.
Additional paintings include the camphor-tree forest, the former wine cellar now used as a library and the cottage of the resident horticulturist.
“I see trees as sentinels and custodians, and always paint an individual portrait of a particular tree, not a generic,” the Port Elizabeth-born artist, who fell in love with nature while growing up in Zambia and attending school in Zimbabwe, pointed out. “Trees have seen it all, and they don’t care who comes and goes.”
Clark’s art training took place at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, where she obtained an MA in Fine Arts, graduating in 1974.
At the start of her career she trained a team of Zimbabwean painters and collaborated with leading interior designers for 25 years, before devoting herself to the easel and nature paintings. Clark’s favourite tree is the classic, flat-topped paperback thorn (Acacia Sieberiana), which she “paints obsessively; you can recognise a silhouette from 50 metres.”
She found that, at Vergelegen “everybody who walked past the studio had a story to tell.” Her enthusiasm for the estate spills over as she described memorable events such as an owl perching on the cottage garden wall, the music of a swing band playing at a summer gala and the dress rehearsal of the RMB Starlight Classics held on the Great Lawn.
“I’m head-over-heels-in-love with this place,” Clark enthused.
Her visit had been organised by Vergelegen MD Wayne Coetzer, who was eager to document the estate’s magnificent trees.
Megan Scott, the art and visual-assets curator for Anglo American, which owns Vergelegen, travelled to the estate and agreed “we need renderings that show the trees’ spirit, their essence.” She had met Clark at her first solo exhibition of trees and plants at the In Toto Gallery in Johannesburg, and Scott had a “light-bulb moment” when she realised she would be the perfect artist to capture the beauty of Vergelegen.
The striking paintings are now on display, and for sale, at Vergelegen’s Café Fleur restaurant.
