Adèle Naudé remembers how Aunt Julie would be measuring a picture with a ruler or tape, trying to assess the price for a prospective buyer:

Once a message was brought to her. She put down the tape, ran downstairs and off she went on her bicycle. It would have been a call for help from a [local] household that had caused her to abandon the affairs of state. She was deeply involved in this community and her aid was never withheld…. Because of their involvement with this community Hugo Naudé painted many intimate backyard scenes.⁴⁵

One wonders if it is not Aunt Julie hanging up washing for one of these households:

Together Oom Pieter and Aunt Julie created a home at The Studio which had a warm friendly atmosphere. Both were particularly interested in the activities of young people and their home became the frequent gathering place for young teachers and other young people from the town.

The atmosphere of this home has been recreated in a most moving & sincere tribute to the artist & his wife written by my sister Joan Jordaan…. It is by far the best piece of writing about this remarkable couple to date for it is based on intimate knowledge of & love for our uncle & aunt & is not a mere collection of facts gathered from a variety of sources.⁴⁷

The following is the author’s translation of this tribute with the author’s choice of photos and paintings inserted:

Fledgling trees in a thick forest need air and space to rise above their immediate environment. Similarly for young children in adult company. Physically they’re still underneath amongst feet, ankles and knee caps, but the upper torso and features remain a mystery to them: what do the people up there look like, what are they doing, what are they like? That is of primary interest. For us as children the year 1918 was significant although we were hardly aware of the aftermath of World War I, the Great Flu Epidemic, the economic disasters and the unemployment. This was beyond our comprehension; but what became of great importance to us, was our better acquaintance with family members outside our home circle who also increasingly grew in stature in our eyes.

Apart from our mother’s family there was also on father’s side, Uncle Pieter and Aunt Julie, an English aunt.

In that year, 1918, they were already married for 3 [sic] years and they lived in the house which he himself planned and had had built.

Everyone knew it as “The Studio” and his nickname was “Artist”. My brothers and I were frequently invited to play there and were always welcomed, though’ we never visited too often. Regards myself, Julie was initially the main person I visited on Saturday mornings. My brothers all enjoyed expeditions with Pieter.

It was with wonderful anticipation that I walked alone early Saturday mornings from our house opposite Church Square until the Post Office corner, past the Lutheran Church and Garies’ shop, then just a little further on until their house.

The garden gate is open, the garden is still and cool with the Plumbago border hedge in full bloom. The rough trunk of the big Palm tree on the lawn is neatly trimmed where the lower branches were removed, and the big leaves above rustle in a friendly way. Near the gate by the goldfish pond with its water lilies and sedges, stands the small date tree with black sweet dates which we were allowed to eat. Here you are safe and the street traffic is muted in the distance. The windows of the double-storey house glitter in the sun, the front door stands open and on the veranda there is a bucket of roses, freshly picked for the house. The pergola above the outside staircase to the big studio is covered with Wistaria [bloureën]

and “Traveller’s Joy” which attract the bees with abundant sweetness; and in the bed beneath against the white roughly-plastered veranda wall the small blue Nemesias from Darling’s veld are in flower.

At the open front door the shiny floor invites you inside and you practically slide over the rich colours of the old, soft dark carpet. Here on a chair is Julie’s brown velvet cushion, stuffed with fragrant pine needles to allow her to sleep well; on the small table alongside the big chair lies Pieter’s glasses and the book which he’d read the previous night in the soft lamplight. Through the windowpanes sunlight and shadow take turns to flash across the round mahogany table as the light breeze slowly moves the leaves of the grapevine pergola.

The small dining room between the living room and the kitchen has a glass outside door which brightens the otherwise dark room. In the corner between the two inside walls stands the dining room table with its green baize cover and the benches built in against the wall. The small corner cupboard above the benches is also dark unless a stray sunbeam illuminates the rose pattern on the fine porcelain cups behind the glass doors again. On the threshold of the kitchen you just smell fresh bread which Pieter bakes himself. He is probably still busy watering his garden at the back or harvesting what’s needed for the day’s cooking or protecting his carnations against the sun. Julie will be in the pantry where she seals her small jars of fruit ?compote [vrugteselei] or jam and attaches labels. Before health food became a fad, they gravitated towards healthy and moderate eating, especially that which they could grow and prepare themselves; and Julie could transform the simplest of food types into delicious meals.

You meet them almost simultaneously when she greets you and he comes in from outside with the day’s vegetables and fruit from the garden.

The whole morning belongs to you. You only go home when the market clock rings at 12h00. Outside where the grass is already dry, on a mat, is the small wooden bed with the Basuto doll waiting. The doll still has nightclothes on and lies in a bed with sheets, pillows with cases and a bright blanket. There are also clothes for the doll to put on while the bedding is aired. After the bed is made, playing can begin and continues until the adults halt their morning chores to drink tea at the shale table under the grapevine pergola near your playground. You get your own tea tray. There are 2 of the small rose cups from the corner cupboard, one for you and one for the doll; there are also 2 delicate silver teaspoons, real sugar, milk, warm tea in a pot under a tea cozy, and a tea sieve. There are thin slices of bread and butter with berry jam and a bowl of junket. After tea we go to the kitchen to wash up. You wash your own tea things. They have faith in you and luckily you don’t break anything.

The year was also important for me because I turned 9 and because that’s when Pieter asked my parents if he could paint my portrait. It was a new, different kind of experience and that’s when he actually started to figure in my life. At first he was just father’s brother and one of the uncles who you enjoyed visiting; but with the sittings which were scheduled for Saturdays and some school holidays, we became closer. There was less playtime but it was nonetheless more interesting.

The large studio in the loft took up almost the entire top floor of the house and large windows on opposite sides supplied the necessary light. In front you could look out onto the street and at the back over the long pergola with fruit trees and vegetables on either side.

Continues…

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