Maurice van Essche: Karoo sunset
Maurice van Essche
Karoo sunset - 1968
Oil on board
45,5 x 91,5 cm
Signed and dated bottom right
Sold - 2011
Discussing van Essche’s stylistic influences and development, Büchner writes:
Van Essche’s early appraisal of French thought and painting broadened his creative imagination, adding something of subtlety and sophistication to the more rugged sphere of Flemish Expressionism into which he had been born.
Maurice van Essche arrived in Cape Town from the Belgian Congo, where he had been painting for a year, in 1940 at the age of 34. A mature artist, he interpreted African humanity and the sun-drenched landscape from a personal perspective, which he expressed in broad abstract terms with an aesthetic sensibility and poetic simplicity. Van Essche remarked that his approach was based on the premise that painting is an intimate dialogue between the painter and life.
Van Essche’s compassion for humanity and the timelessness of his landscapes are expressed in his paintings of Cape fisher folk, portraits of noble Malay women and working class people eking out a living on the plains of the arid Karoo. The sentiment and atmosphere of his paintings are enhanced by his trademark palette of deep reds and blues, earthy pinks, ochre’s and greys, often set off by vibrant blacks and whites.
Biblioraphy:
Carl Büchner, Van Essche, Cape Town, 1967
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