BoereworsExpress Sep 2021

SECRETS, ART, & EXPATS
It is one of Vladimir Tretchikoff's most
sensual paintings, titled Thou Shalt Not
Commit Adultery. The model was an
ordinary woman from Grabouw, who
drank Earl Grey tea and shared a homemade
Swiss Roll cake with the Russian
artist at her Cape Town apartment in
1979 when he asked her to pose for
him. Her identity was a secret for many
years.
Brenda van der Westhuizen, then 25
years old, remembers almost choking as
she drank tea and him asking if she
would pose topless. Two days later, he
started painting her, and her boyfriend asked that her identity be
kept secret. At one stage. the Scope magazine editor asked
Tretchikoff for the model's details so that they could do a centrefold
photo shoot, but he kept the secret. Brenda eventually revealed that
she was the model, when she wrote her first book, Son, see en
saffier.
An Italian friend introduced her to
an old friend at his father's
restaurant in Sea Point, and that's
how she met Tretchikoff. Two days
later they met at her apartment to
discuss the painting. There were
four hour-long painting sessions in
his studio in Bishopscourt. She was
paid R350, which in those days was
quite a lot, as well as a print that he
signed with the words: To Brenda,
the model of this painting. The print
went missing when she took it to a
gallery in Paarl for re-framing. When she went back much later to
collect it, there was a new owner who didn't know anything about
the print.
She remembers the artist as a charming man that enjoyed good food
and wine, treated people well and kept his word. She never saw him
again after the last modelling session. At the time. Brenda was
already in a two-year relationship with Dirk de Villiers, a film
director and producer of South African films and TV series such as
Arende. They met in Cape Town in 1977 when she worked as a
travel consultant for the Railways' travel bureau. He was filming
Dingetjie & Idi when she came across the film set. He thought she
was a tourist, and introduced himself, offering to show her the film
studios in Waal Street. She was 23 and he was in his 50s - he was
her first love.
These days Brenda lives in
Calitzdorp where she is an
animal welfare volunteer
and holistic health therapist.
Her book shares stories
from her life - covering her
childhood years, the
painting sessions and some
of her recipes (she later
became a chef and
restaurant manager). She
didn't plan on writing a
book. It came about after
she published a series of
stories about growing up in
Brenda at a book reading
Gansbaai in the local community newspaper last Christmas. When
she lived in Prince Albert, she entered a short story for the 2016
Prince Albert Literary Festival, and was encouraged to write more.
In 1965 one of the world’s most
successful artists held an
exhibition in Vancouver, Canada
- not at the Vancouver Art
Gallery but at Eaton’s department
store. His first Vancouver
exhibition opened on 16 April
1955. An estimated 4,000 people
per day flocked to the sixth floor
of Eaton’s during the three-week
show, which included 50
originals and many reproductions
of his more famous work that he
would sign for those who bought
one. Vladimir Tretchikoff made a
fortune selling prints of his work
in the 1950s and 1960s. Prints
like Chinese Girl, Dying Swan
and Lost Orchid were hanging in
thousands of middle class living
rooms.
He called his style symbolical realism - they were realistic but with
exotic touches that were uniquely his. Critics dismissed his
paintings, and he dismissed critics. In May 1965 he told The
Province reporter that he didn't give a damn what anyone wanted -
"I paint what, when and how I like. I haven’t had a commission in
15 years. I consider critics a bunch of comedians; they make me
laugh all the way to the bank." He sold 18 original paintings for
$50,000 during a three-month cross-Canada tour, but he made even
more money selling prints, $70,000. The press dubbed him "the
richest painter in the world after Picasso."
He was born Vladimir Grigoryevich Tretchikoff in Petropavlovsk,
Kazakhstan on 26 December 1913. When the Russian Revolution
broke out in 1917, his parents and their eight children left their
landed estate and fled to Harbin in the Chinese part of Manchuria.
In 1924, while still in
school, he helped out with
scene painting at the
Harbin Opera House. It
started as a hobby but he
soon realised painting was
a passion.
In 1929 he received his
first commission, from the
Chinese-Eastern Railway
for portraits of Lenin and
Sum Yat San, to hang in
their new headquarters.
He was paid 500 roubles.
He used the money to
move to Shanghai in
1932, where he became a Tretchikoff at Eaton's in Vancouver, 8 May 1965
cartoonist for the
Shanghai Times. He met Natalie Telpregoff, another Russian
refugee, in Shanghai. They married in 1935 and moved to
Singapore where he worked in advertising, drew cartoons for the
Straits Times and secretly worked for the British Ministry of
Information, illustrating anti-Japanese and anti-axis propaganda
posters and pamphlets. In 1938 his paintings represented Malaya at
the New York World's Fair. His daughter, Mimi, was born in 1938.
When the Japanese invaded Singapore in the early hours of a
December morning in 1941, Natalie and Mimi were hastily
evacuated. He was put on a later ship, HMS Giang Bee, which was
torpedoed by the Japanese on 13 February 1942. Tretchikoff and
other survivors two life boats made it to the occupied coast of Java.
After three months in solitary confinement in Serang he was
released. He spent the rest of the war painting portraits under town
arrest in Djakarta. One of the portrait clients was Leonora Moltema,
(Continued on page 7)
Boerewors Express ● September 2021 6