The Rupert Museum: Whose art is it anyway?

Down a quiet street in Stellenbosch, there is an unassuming Cape farm-style building.

It's here that the Rupert Museum houses one of South Africa's richest art collections with paintings, sculptures and tapestries making up the bulk of its 350 pieces.

The museum opened in 2005 to showcase the private collection established by the late billionaire businessman Anton Rupert and his wife Huberte. Although there are international works (including sculptures by Auguste Rodin), the main focus of the approximately 2000m² space is South African art from 1940 to 1970 - all kept in carefully controlled climatic conditions to ensure preservation of the works.

Museum director Deon Herselman says this was a period when South African artists "were moving away from applying European trends and techniques and coming into their own, yet the art was still representational in comparison with the abstract and hard-edge period thereafter". It is an aesthetic that resonated with the Ruperts.

Independent art consultant Ian Hunter, former head of the art department at Stephan Welz & Co in Association with Sotheby's, says of that period that some South African artists "distinguished themselves by interpreting and creating their own unique and dynamic iconography and stylistic expression". He cites Walter Battiss, JH Pierneef, Alexis Preller and Irma Stern as "the leading innovators" of this period, and all feature in this collection.

There are 27 Stern paintings currently displayed, offering an extraordinary illumination of the breadth and complexity of the artist's oeuvre - from summery landscapes to portraits of Zanzibar residents and lush still lifes. Sharing the same exhibition hall (one of three) are works by two other notable women painters of the period, Maggie Laubser and Cecil Higgs.

"A collection tells a story and the story the Rupert Museum collection tells is a reflection of the dominant white culture of that era [1940-1970]," says Hunter.

"The collection includes most of the acclaimed white South African artists from that period. It excludes black South African artists such as George Pemba, John Koenakeefe Mohl, Gerard Sekoto and Moses Tladi, among many others.

"Although good examples of work by black sculptors, such as Ezrom Legae and Sydney Kumalo, are represented, the museum would certainly benefit with the inclusion of the major black artists from that period to make the collection more inclusive and representational."

The museum's curator and administrator, Robyn-Lee Cedras, says the period the museum focuses on "was a very difficult time for black artists to produce work and many turned to [to appease customers] visual production that was easier to sell, like 'township art' or tourist art and craft.

"Black artists practising in what could be thought of as the Modern style or any 'non-traditional African art' were few and not well supported by art dealers who were looking for 'traditional African art'."

While an expansion of the collection has not been ruled out, Cedras says at this stage there are no plans to make further acquisitions.

Hunter estimates the collection to be worth R300-million. While he says this makes the museum "one of the most substantial repositories of South African art, "to put this in perspective, the recent sale of one artwork - Monet's Nympheas (part of his Water Lilies series) - at Sotheby's in London for £31.7-million (R576-million), positions one artwork at nearly double the value of this entire collection".

• www.rupertmuseum.org

JH Pierneef's station panels

A large room in the Rupert Museum is dedicated to the 'Johannesburg Railway Station' panels by JH Pierneef, which are on permanent loan from the Transnet Foundation. The 32 paintings, considered to be his finest works, were unveiled in Park Station in 1932. The landscapes showcase scenes from across Southern Africa, and feature Pierneef's characteristic ominous clouds, wonky trees, soaring mountains and flat colours.