Alice GOLDIN (1922 – 2016)
Low Tide, Arniston
1985
oil on board
45 x 60 cm
Trees, Newlands
1977
oil on canvas
91 x 60.5 cm
Citadel Jerusalem
1984
screenprint
edition 2/35
91 x 60.5 cm
Mount of Olives
1984
screenprint
edition 1/35
size unknown
BIOGRAPHY
Alice Goldin was born and nurtured in Vienna, Austria, in the 1920s and perhaps it was the great trees of the Turkenschanz Park, where she used to walk with her father, that first alerted her to the symphonic beauty of nature.
On the insistence of her wise mother, her family left Vienna for England when Goldin was 16 years old – days after the Nazis entered Austria. During the Second World War, Goldin served as a nurse.
In 1948, a visit to South Africa resulted in marriage and the beginning of her artistic studies at the Pretoria Technical College, where she enrolled in 1950. This path led to further studies in Rome, London and Cape Town and a career that spanned over 60 years.
Goldin’s work includes paintings, woodblock prints and screen prints. A pioneer of South African printmaking, in the 1970s, she worked mainly in woodcuts, producing striking studies of trees and small-scale landscapes. She was fascinated by the patterns that the trees created – the shapes and light between the branches. She used the grain of the raw wood she carved into to dictate an impression – contributing strongly to the character and atmosphere of the resulting print.
Her more famous prints include a series of pine trees along Rhodes Drive, Newlands as well as her Arniston series – both locations in which the artist lived.
A monograph on Goldin’s life and work was published, written by Goldin and edited by Jeremy Lawrence.