Painting a life less ordinary

TZANEEN – Petite Ina van Schalkwyk (68) is one of the few recognised artists alive in South Africa today.

In peaceful surroundings on her 29 hectare farm in Tzaneen, she spends at least seven hours a day painting in her well-lit studio.

She attributes her success to an inborn talent, tenacity, dedication and hard work.

Van Schalkwyk moved to Tzaneen from Pretoria after her divorce 30 years ago. She wanted to be closer to her mother who lived on a farm in Georges’ Valley. She was already a well-known artist, having held her first exhibition of District Six works at an art gallery in Pretoria in 1976. Memorable was a study of two children with their clothes in tatters titled “Flenters”. The exhibition consisted of 70 oils, 30 pencil sketches and 30 portraits.

She was a gifted child and did her first drawing at the age of three years, She read Afrikaans fluently by the time she was four years old.

She married at 20, lived in Pretoria and had five daughters and one son. During this period she designed and made clothes for select clients and travelled extensively in the Cape to sketch and paint. Her parents had offered her tertiary education in fine arts but she believed that her art would remain a hobby.

Van Schalkwyk gave art lessons to some 80 pupils in Tzaneen. She also started a successful weaving business, Sasekile, and designed each carpet individually.

Meanwhile she spent hours observing, photographing and sketching the wildlife of the Kruger National Park. Later, she held what was hailed as the largest wildlife exhibition in South Africa. Her exhibition, at the former Tzaneen Hotel, included 50 oils, 25 pencil sketches and 14 pastel portrait studies.

“Spencer Drake from Georges’ Valley sponsored the exhibition and really set me on my way. I’m very grateful to him.”

Van Schalkwyk needed to be closer to her frail mother, so she built an art school some distance away from the family home. She cast the first 70 000 bricks herself.

A double tragedy then changed her life. Her mother died and eight months later her third husband, Matt Erasmus, had his third and fatal heart attack. She stopped art lessons, sold the weaving business and moved into the unfinished shell of an art school with gaping holes for windows and doors. Painting became her livelihood.

This petite artist is also passionate about gardening and building. She has, over the years, transformed her garden into a paradise and has added on to her home to turn it into a luxurious many-bedroomed haven.

Van Schalkwyk was commissioned to paint an oil portrait of Princess Michael of Kent holding a cheetah. The Princess and her husband, Prince Michael, are patrons of the cheetah project at Kapama Lodge near Hoedspruit. Van Schalkwyk worked from a photograph taken by the princess’s own photographer.

Princess Michael is passionate about Africa. When her parents divorced, her mother went to live in Australia and her father bought a farm in Mozambique. She spent many happy holidays in Africa going on trips into the bush with her father.

Princess Michael flew to South Africa to christen a month old cheetah called Prince Michael. She met briefly with Van Schalkwyk for a photographic shoot and was then whisked away to christen Prince Michael. In an interview, Princess Michael noted that the little cheetah’s nails were quite sharp.

In between commissions for portraits of adults and large works like her recent baobab tree, Van Schalkwyk likes depicting barefooted children in Victorian like settings on canvas.

She believes that women who dress in modern day outfits have lost the art of femininity. All her daughters as well as her dozen or so grandchildren have posed as models over the years.