20th Century South African Art

            The South African Society of Artists was initially founded in May 08, 1897, but was somehow buried and disappeared during and after the South African war, which took place in 1899. A reemergence of the establishment was brought about in 1902, which is now reasoned to be the appropriate official date for the Society. The South African Society for Artists was created exclusively to serve artists that were practicing their craft in South Africa, and was actually the first kind of organization to so in South Africa. Giving off a feeling of a close community rather than a divided and unstable group, the SASA made sure to bring the South African art form and its artists to national recognition. Popular members of the age consisted of Nerine Desmond, Robert Gwelo Goodman, Ivan Mitford Barberton, Nita Spilhaus, Desiree Picton Seymor, and Anton van Wouw, all in relation with the SASA. The SASA was indeed crucial in the beginning of the South African National Gallery, during which it promoted art appreciation and education of the arts. Throughout its years, unfortunately, there have been upsets and differences and changes in taste between members of the organization – still, it hold firm to the same state of a community feeling and upbringing.
             While the Colonial period was underway, South African painters and sculptors began to put the images and reflections of the new world onto blank canvases and rocks that took on a new form of its own. As the end of the 1800s was approaching, select artists such as Jan Volschenk, Harry Caldecott, and Hugo Naudé, as well as the Dutch-born influential sculptor that was Anton van Wouw, started establishing their own styles of the African art around their local areas. The works of these men have been considered to be the first of their kinds to depict the life and lifestyles of ones who dwelled in South Africa . It was a standing moment in time that this came to be, since the ending of this colonial period, with the Union in 1910, finally seemed to give South Africa its own individuality, uniqueness, and a sense of nationality.