Vorster, Anna ( 1928 – 1990 )

Anna Vorster was born in 1928 in Hartebeesfontein, Transvaal (Gauteng). Anna studied BA Fine arts at the
University of Wits and won a two-year postgraduate scholarship to study abroad. From 1952 – 1953 she
studied at Slade School in London and thereafter, under Andre Lhote in Paris. Following her first European
Studies, she toured the continent, exhibited in London, where her work and style, analytical with Cubist
influence, was well-received.

The natural ability and intelligence with which Anna Vorster embarked on her career could have enabled
her to establish an easy reputation as painter of graceful semi-realist themes. At all times it was her drawing
which sustained the quality of her artistic effort. Her use of color has seldom showed the authority inherent in
her rhythmical line.

Her marriage and her pleasure in the Cape coastal scenery contributed a new quality to her work during the
early seventies. No longer did she retreat into tense abstractions. Responding with lighthearted joyousness ,
even lyricism. To the picturesque scenery of the Peninsula, she allowed her articulate line, to describe the
image even while it analyzed the abstract rhythms of the scene.

On Anna Vorster’s return to the harsher scenery of the Transvaal, that peak of figurative composition was
succeeded by a renewed analysis and synthesis of abstract scenic elements.

Anna Vorster passed away in 1990 in Pretoria, South-Africa