Browsing by Author "Tietze, Anna"

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    The faithful and/or flattering in 19th Century portraiture
    (2013) Van der Hoek, Jessica; Tietze, Anna
    The nineteenth century's creation of different optical devices such as the camera obscura, the kaleidoscope and the thaumatrope signifies a change in the perception of vision at the time. The aim of this dissertation is to examine the work of four artists with reference to nineteenth century concerns surrounding vision. The scope for this examination is limited to the painted portraiture of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Singer Sargent and photographic portraiture of Julia Margaret Cameron and Félix Nadar Tournachon. Rossetti and Cameron represent two Victorian artists whose vision is turned inward to the imagination, with feelings of nostalgia and sentimentalism evoked in their portraits. This dissertation argues that the act of turning the eye inwards to the imagination is at the root of the flattering quality of these two artists' portraits. A further argument is that the sustained use of literary reference is the catalyst to the inward vision seen in these two Victorian artists' work. I examine Dante Gabriel Rossetti‟s later phase of idealised and "flattering" portraits of women in relation to the sonnets that Rossetti began to physically attach to either the frame or canvas of the portrait. The use of literary reference as catalyst to the inward vision is discussed namely through Julia Margaret Cameron‟s photographic portraits based on Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Enoch Arden. Cameron's allegorical and often mythological portraits of women are then analysed in order to establish the "flattering" quality of her portraits. With regards to the two artists who have been termed "faithful", an examination of their more outward vision and focus on the exterior realities is discussed. An exposition surrounding Félix Nadar Tournachon's "faithful" photographic portraits of nineteenth-century celebrities follows the discussion on Cameron. In order to further enquire into the notion of nineteenthcentury celebrities, an examination of John Singer Sargent follows. With the idea of Sargent being torn between the faithful and the flattering, I examine his more faithful Portrait of Madame X in relation to his later flattering celebrity portraits painted in the Grand Manner. In conclusion it will be suggested that Victorian and French ideas of vision and representation differed, exemplified by these four artists. These two very different perceptions of vision, one inward and the other outward, is the root of my distinction between the "faithful" and the "flattering" as manifested in portraiture.
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    Hidden treasures in Ivory Towers : the potential of university art collections in South Africa, with a case study of UCT
    (2007) Franzidis, Eva; Green, Louise; Tietze, Anna
    This dissertation takes as its central theme the context of a university as a setting for artworks. While globally many university art collections enjoy prominent status in their communities, and are well endowed and visited, their South African counterparts are sorely underused and valued. Thus, the aim of the study is twofold; in the first instance, an argument is made for the positive and productive role South African university art collections can play within their society - and primary research reveals the rich and varied collections held throughout the country. The second focus is on one particular case study: the University of Cape Town (UCT) art collection, and the acquisition body that oversees it, the Works of Art Committee (WOAC). Through a detailed analysis of this committee's thirty-year archive, and informed by the experience of an extensive internship with the WOAC, the study provides an overview of their operation, assessing their successes and failures. What is revealed is that there are numerous problems inherent within the way in which this committee is run, and the management of the art collection in general. Aside from compositional issues within the committee itself, the fact that there is no educational integration between the collection and the university community, is highly problematic. As such, numerous suggestions are offered, with the hope that the collection can become a more meaningful presence to those on campus, and beyond. For, with a far healthier acquisition budget than the South African National Gallery, and access to a large and diverse audience, it seems as though a highly exciting opportunity is being overlooked.
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    Irma Stern (1894-1966) : the creation of an artist's reputation in her lifetime and posthumously, 1920-2013
    (2016) Sinisi, Sarah; Tietze, Anna
    This dissertation examines the reception of the artist, Irma Stern, from 1920 until 2013. Irma Stern has, since her lifetime, been one of South Africa's most celebrated artists. She has received a great deal of scholarly attention, attention in the popular press and on-going recognition in the market place. Through an evaluation of press clippings, literature, archival material (photographs, the minutes of meetings and letters) and market results, this study questions how Stern has come to assume such a privileged position, why she is of such scholarly interest and how she is valued in the market. The impact of different variables on Stern's reception - including social, political and intellectual factors - is investigated. It is proposed that, initially, the artist actively promoted herself, thus playing an important role in establishing her fame. However, her reputation has been built over time and what emerges as important is that audiences have approached and interpreted Stern differently at different times. During the artist's lifetime she was admired for her perceived ability to capture the 'spirit of Africa', apparently evident in her paintings of those culturally different from her. These paintings - of black African, Indian, coloured and Arab subjects - have remained an integral aspect of the artist's reputation and they are at the centre of much of the scholarly debate on the artist in the 1990s and 2000s. Stern has provided rich material for writers at different times and of different ideological positions - from colonial to postcolonial discourse and feminist studies. Also relevant to Stern's sustained reputation is the international recognition the artist has received. Stern's links to German Expressionism and recognition from foreign scholars and institutions served to legitimate the artist to a South African audience in her lifetime and posthumously. Moreover, the market has had an impact on Stern's reputation. While she was commercially successful in her lifetime, in the early 2000s her market values exceeded those of earlier periods and surpassed those of other twentieth-century South African artists. As a result, Stern's reputation in the 2000s is linked to her high market values; this dissertation closely investigates some of the factors that have influenced this market value. In conclusion, this dissertation fills a gap in the literature because it 1) analyses the artist's market and 2) provides an in-depth investigation of the development of the artist's reputation. A study in reception, it does not add to the already plentiful appraisals of the artist's work but considers instead how this work has fared within the context of the academic, popular and commercial art world.
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    The problem of orginality and value in the Lady Michaelis gifts to the South African National Gallery
    (2010) Tietze, Anna
    The issue of authenticity in visual art is critically addressed at the outset of this paper. This general discussion leads to a study of the works presented by Lady Michaelis to the South African National Gallery in the 1930s. Many of the paintings and drawings in this gift collection have never been exhibited because of doubts about their authenticity and claims that they are fake. The collection is analysed to assess the justification or otherwise for these doubts. It is concluded that, even if doubts justifiably exist about some of the works, others have firmer attributions to interesting artists. Moreover, it is argued, even those which do not might still be exhibited in an age which has revised its view of the ‘authenticity’ issue.
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    The recipe book and the construction of female domestic identity: a historical inquiry
    (University of Cape Town, 2020) Carew, Nina; Tietze, Anna
    This thesis explores how familiar objects such as the homely recipe book hold our affection and shape our personal worlds. It takes its inspiration from a body of literature that only recently has explored in detail our relationship to mundane objects, subjecting these objects - and our feelings about them - to a serious scrutiny. The thesis is concerned with a material culture that takes us into domestic space, and to the objects within it to which we attach importance. Specifically, the inquiry explores the cultural mores surrounding the practice of cooking and writing food. It considers the interplay between public and private, male and female, self and other and the significance of the domestic space in each case. It asks how the culture of the recipe book helps shape female domestic identity, that is, the personae of women within the home, and as wives and mothers, as opposed to their public personae. This thesis studies the (until-recently) under-researched yet broad field - previously regarded as both too trivial and too formulaic to merit study - of homely recipe books. It considers the large collection of historic manuscripts of this genre available at the National Library of South Africa, in particular the collection of Louis C Leipoldt, and it regards these as part of a continuum with my own mother's recipe book. An important leitmotif of the study is the evolution of the recipe book from manuscript to printed, and from single copy to mass-produced text. On the one hand using recipe books as historical sources for the study of food and material culture, this study is also concerned with the affective impact of these texts, and more specifically what they say about the individuals and societies that made them. A central theme of the study is the role played in women's lives by the collecting and archiving of recipes through hand-written texts. My purpose is twofold: first, to bring these hidden histories to light, opening the kitchen door to the lives of ordinary women through their private writings; and second, to explore why the practice of writing food continues to be relevant into the present. I trace how homely recipe books are both exercises in personal authority as well as material traces of women's internal worlds and archives of the communities in which they exist. This study ultimately sees the return of the personalised recipe book as a route back to a positive and affirming female domestic identity, through a practice which is both therapeutic and self-actualising and which, through the act of archiving, brings together both past and present.