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Voortrekker Woman and Child
Rosa Hope
Conté on paper
1938
0493
Rosa Somerville Hope (b.1902, Manchester, England d. 1972, Kokstad, South Africa)
After attending the Manchester High School for Girls, Rosa Hope received her training at the Slade School of Art in London under Henry Tonks (1862-1937), Philip Wilson Steer (1860-1942) and John Wheatley (1892-1955) and later at the Central School of Art, also in London.
In 1926 she won the Prix de Rome for her etching The Adoration of the Shepherds, which was subsequently shown at the Royal Academy. Digermülen was purchased in London by Colonel R H Whitwell in 1926 for the Tatham Art Gallery collection.
When she visited South Africa in 1935, one of her former teachers at the Slade School, Professor John Wheatley, offered her a teaching post at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town where he was then Professor. She founded the school's printmaking and engraving department.
In 1938 she accepted the post of Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, where she remained until 1957. From here she made frequent painting trips to the Drakensberg and Transkei.
Rosa Hope designed the tableau of the Great Trek Centenary in the Irene Post Office in 1939. The drawings and etching in the Tatham Art Gallery collection may well have been studies for the tableau.