Frans Oerder

Frans David Oerder (7 April 1867 – 15 July 1944) was a Dutch-born South African landscape, still-life and portrait painter, etcher, and lithographer.

He was born in Rotterdam. Frans was the youngest of seven children born to a municipal employee, Johannes Carolus Oerder. His father felt that art as a career was foolish, but agreed to his training as a decorator.

From 1880 to 1885, Oerder studied art at the Rotterdam Academy, winning the King William III Gold Medal and Bursary, later touring in Italy and studying in Brussels under Ernest Blanc-Garin (1843–1916) with the help of a small inheritance from his father.

Following his brother, he emigrated to the South African Republic in 1890, and initially worked as house painter and decorator for the firm of De Wyn & Engelenburg. Pressed by a shortage of work he entered the employ of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Spoorweg Maatschappij and painted poles along the Delagoa Bay railway line.

In the 1890s, Oerder was, along with Anton van Wouw and James Smith Moreland in Cape Town, one of only three artists in South Africa with recognised professional training. In 1894, he took up the position of art teacher at the Staatsmeisjesskool, which later became the Pretoria High School for Girls and at the same time rented a studio in Church Street East. He eked out a living by drawing newspaper cartoons and helping Anton van Wouw with commissions. A frequent visitor to the studio during this period was one of his art students, going by the name of J.H. Pierneef. Oerder hadn't forgotten his ties to South Africa, and occasionally carried out commissions such as designing covers for the weekly magazine, Die Brandwag, and arranging an exhibition in Johannesburg.

He eventually returned to Pretoria with his wife in 1938. His work by now was widely acclaimed, and in a grand gesture the tower-room of the Pretoria City Hall was made available to him for use as a studio. Here he painted several important portraits, including that of Jan Smuts. He now had the time and inclination to travel and paint in the Cape Province, Natal and the Northern Transvaal.

Complications following on a bout of pneumonia left him debilitated, and he died in Pretoria in 1944. Throughout his career he had divided his output fairly evenly between landscape, portrait and still-life, with the Dutch influence always apparent.

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