Maggie Laubser

Maggie Laubser by Johan van Rooyen, published in 1974 by Struik, is a richly illustrated and scholarly biography of one of South Africa’s most beloved artists. Magdalena Elizabeth Laubser (1886–1973) was a pioneering modernist painter whose work blended European expressionist influences with distinctly African themes, landscapes and colour palettes. Van Rooyen traces her development from childhood through her artistic career, highlighting both her personal challenges and her significant impact on the South African art scene.

In this volume, readers encounter a detailed chronology of Laubser’s artistic evolution — her early education, time in Europe, return to South Africa, and how she found her voice in the Cape’s landscapes and communities. Van Rooyen also discusses her stylistic influences, her experiments with colour, line and form, and key works in her oeuvre. The book features reproductions of her paintings interwoven with critical essays and contextual commentary, allowing readers to appreciate not only her life but the aesthetic and cultural importance of her art.

Collectors of South African art, museum curators, historians and fans of modernist painting will find Maggie Laubser an essential text. It offers a blend of biography and art history that does justice to Laubser’s originality and legacy, and is a tribute to her role in shaping a uniquely South African visual language.