Description
Maud Sumner (1902 – 1985)
Maud Sumner was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, a celebrated South African artist known for painting, watercolor, drawing, poetry, and writing. Her work drew on French, English, and South African art, beginning with French scenes of everyday life, interiors, still lifes, and figures. A trip to Spain introduced the influence of El Greco, while she continued exploring French Intimism, postwar Paris, abstraction, Rayonism, and fragmentation. Over time, South African landscapes and colors became more prominent, including distant deserts rendered in soft, abstract hues. Her contemplative paintings conveyed spirituality, tranquility, and solitude. Increasingly introspective, Sumner developed a simplified style distinguished by skilled paint handling and a refined sense of color technique.
Some of Sumner’s finest works were painted in the Namib Desert. Africa dominated her work increasingly. In the context of South African art she certainly stands as a major artist, an artist with a strong vision and a very active imagination, who knew how to give expression to her vision in paintings of great artistic merit.
In November 1971, she was awarded the Medal of Honour by the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns, at the time of a highly successful “semi-retrospective” exhibition in Pretoria.
