Commissioner Street by Arthur Cantrell (c.1957)

Watercolour.

The painting depicts Commissioner Street around the year 1900.

Arthur Edward Cantrell (1917-98) was born in Burma (present-day Myanmar) in 1917. He settled in South Africa in 1936, where he worked as a metalworker and sculptor before serving as a bomb navigator during the war.

Cantrell became a full-time artist in 1952 and joined the Bloemfontein Group in 1961, which was founded by Frans Claerhout, Reneé le Roux, Alexander and Marianne Podlashuc, and Eben van der Merwe in 1958. Cantrell’s style varies from figuration to abstraction and his subject matter ranges from detailed ink drawings of Johannesburg to colour blocked still life paintings.

675mm x 500mm including mountboard

R1,500