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FOR THE LOVE OF LIGHT 

THE OWL HOUSE: 

A Visual Journey 

Elzilda Becker 

Merwelene van der Merwe 


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DEKAT MEDIA 

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PUBLISHED BY: 

ADDRESS: 

EDITOR: 

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EDITOR: 

WRITERS: 

RESEARCH: 

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DEKAT MEDIA 

14 Terrace Road, Mountain View 




Melvyn Minnaar 

Wilhelm van Rensburg 

Mimi Greyling 

Susan Greyling 

Daniël van der Merwe 

Susan Greyling 

Hazel Cuthbertson 

Kim Shaw 

Heinz Bawa 

THE OWL HOUSE FOUNDATION 

Athol Fugard ruminates on Helen Martins and the Owl House 

I remember my first visit to Nieu-Bethesda very clearly. It was in the seventies when I first crossed the drift over the river, a prominent feature of the village, then took a long drive 

under blossoming pear trees into its heart. Back then, many of the houses that lined Nieu-Bethesda's streets were empty or used to house sheep at night. The village, once the 

centre of a prosperous farming community, was slowly on its way to becoming a ghost village. At the time, Helen Martins was still alive but no longer working. She had come to 

the end of her journey in terms of her remarkable creation – the Camel Yard and her relentless pursuit of light. But the villagers thought of her as mentally disturbed, a slightly 

sinister figure who kept to herself in the secluded haven of light she had created with the help of Koos Malgas. Another one of the few people who kept up a relationship with 

Helen was the Dutch Reformed Church minister who hoped to bring her back into the fold and into the congregation that met every Sunday to sing hymns in the beautiful, whitewashed 

church. She wanted none of it. 

By the time I had bought a house in the village, I was a playwright in my forties. A fellow artist, I had become interested in Helen's work, in her dream of going on a pilgrimage to 

COPYRIGHT © 




All rights reserved. No part of this coffee table book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or 

transmitted in any form or by any means, 

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the 

copyright © owner. 

For permissions and enquiries, please contact: 

The Owl House Foundation 

First Edition: 2023 

ISBN: [000–0–00–00000–0] Bar code 

JOHANNESBURG 2023 

Mecca, something she finally realised through the statues of camels, mermaids, and other exotic elements in the yard of her Karoo cottage. In the house, she worked tirelessly to 

create as many possibilities for light as possible. One day, I summoned the courage to knock on her door. As a member of the community myself, I thought she might talk to me. 

Opening the door a crack, she rebuffed me as soundly as she would have anyone else who came to disturb her meditations. 

After Helen's death, no one knew what to do with the caged birds she kept on her stoep. Jill Wenman, a young woman who had become a friend in Helen's later years (her only?), 

joined the minister in opening the cage and catching as many birds as possible. When Jill returned to Cape Town, it was with a carload of birds. But before she left, she showed 

me a photograph of her and Helen. What struck me most was Helen's frailty, her bird-like quality, as she looked up at her young friend. I never forgot that image, and it would 

eventually catapult me into writing what became The Road to Mecca. 

I no longer live in Nieu-Bethesda, but I think about that magical place every day. I and all my fellow South African artists owe a debt to Helen for going before us and showing what 

it means to bravely pursue your vision, regardless of the world's readiness to embrace it. 

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V

INTRODUCTION 


The enigma of the Owl House in the outback of Nieu-Bethesda, the story of Helen Martins, was a slow spread among a group of us involved in the theatre and art world around 

1980. With my feet in theatre as well as visual art, that mysterious presence somewhere in the Klein-Karoo was a lure and a challenge. Together with my friend Moyra Fine, 

benefactor of The Space Theatre, we took the long road trip. I remember the compelling awe of the landscape and the remarkable oasis of the village, so far from everything. 

Athol Fugard, whose plays ploughed the human condition wowed audiences at The Space, had been mesmerised. He had acquired a house. Word spread and we went to look. 

We got the key and permission from Mevrou Claassen. The cottage in the unadorned, practical style of the region, stood singly across from the dry crags of the Gat River. For us, 

theatre people, the interior of the Owl House was a dramatic set of pure mystery and dark enchantment. For us, seeped in the visual arts environment, the Camel Yard and its 

inhabitants were a sculpture experience like no other. 

Some had been talking about ‘outsider art’ as an adjunct to the normative of white space galleries. It was also a time when South Africa was 'discovering' or 'uncovering' art 

mostly ignored by the cultural regime of the time. 

Unabashed invention, singular, alone and powerful, is what this strange small woman left here. And thanks to its desolation, its isolation, it had remained intact since her death 

some four years earlier. But it certainly was in need of care. Back in the big cities, that message took hold among a variety of people in the art community. The concept of “Friends 

of the Owl House” slowly came into being – friends of a creative outsider’s universe. 

Among us were individuals like Anne Emslie and Sue Ross, who both published books about Martins, well-known architect Maciek Miszewski and Raymund van Niekerk, director 

of the SA National Art Gallery. Art gallery and museum people signed up. Through contacts we brought PPC, the cement company, on board as sponsor. I believe their officials’ 

expertise was tickled by the challenge of fixing cement structures invented and handmade by a frail, small women and her inspired handymen. PPC played a vital part in the 

formation of the Friends and its future. 

Perhaps the Friends’ most important achievement was to relocate Koos Malgas to the town when restoration started. He was Martins’ right-hand man until her death. She called 

him “Artist”. He had left a few years earlier to work in Worcester, but we built him a house (designed by Miszewski). His work until his death in 2000 was invaluable especially in the 

preservation of the Camel Yard. By then he was indeed a celebrated “artist”, recorded as such in a book by his granddaughter Julia Malgas. 

An interesting aspect of our involvement was finalised when a legal conundrum of ownership was resolved. A distant nephew could claim inheritance, but records were in a 

shambles and the local council was in a quandary about tax and ownership. So it was agreed that the council would take ownership of the property and the Foundation would 

manage it. For a sum of R75, “Erf 306 Nieu-Bethesda (991 vierkante meter)” was transferred to the municipality on February 13, 1984. 

Based on the international concept of supporters of an art institution formalising group assistance as 'Friends', we slowly developed the guidelines of our 'duty': to support and 

protect the Owl House. Membership was enthused by invention and inspiration. Our prime task was to restore and to preserve, while promoting the Owl House’s heritage and 

stature, as well as Helen Martins’ importance as ‘outsider artist’. 

In 1996 the Friends had formalised the Owl House Foundation. Proper curatorial and administrative endeavours were established in town as tourism grew. Interaction with the local 

community also became vibrant and vital. The Foundation facilitated various projects and set-up a curatorial-management system. More than anything, the Friends promoted the 

unique vision and execution of Helen Martins’ art. 

I think it is important to note that most of the Friends were outsider enthusiasts and experts, their distance from Nieu-Bethesda allowing a sober look at this unique project and 

how to cherish it for the future and, also to the advance of the budding tourism industry of the town. Various projects were tackled: inspections, research, documentation, expert 

advice sought, fundraising planned and applications for heritage status drawn up. 

In the following years, as electricity finally arrived in the 1990s, tourism grew as more and more pilgrimages were undertaken by the charmed and the curious. Village people became 

more integrated into what was once for them the strange world that Miss Helen had created. They learnt, told about, and boasted of her legacy. The dynamics of both society and 

the function of the Friends, formal and informal, transformed. – all FOR THE LOVE OF LIGHT THE OWL HOUSE: A Visual Journey. 

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VII

NOTE FROM THE CHAIRMAN 

I am privileged to introduce this beautiful book on the life and work of Helen Martins. 

Helen’s singular vision and idiosyncratic obsession resulted in the creation of a private world that fascinates and enchants us to this day. Her art, seemingly untethered from the 

reality of her immediate environment, has resulted in a lasting legacy for Nieu-Bethesda, the Karoo, and South Africa. 

In building her vision, Helen had the invaluable support of Jonas Adams, Piet van der Merwe, and Frans Olifant, but in particular, Koos Malgas, with whom she worked most closely 

and longest of all her collaborators. Their legacy is not only in the beauty of the Owl House, but also in the crafters’ precinct where replicas of Helen’s enigmatic sculptures are made 

to this day. 

The Owl House has become a defining feature of Nieu-Bethesda, attracting artists and tourists to this beautiful town and region. It has helped to shape the character of the town 

and contributed to its success. 

It is my pleasure to be part of the team seeking to preserve Helen’s legacy for the benefit of Nieu-Bethesda and the Karoo. The task for us is to continue to protect and position the 

Owl House as the national treasure it is: the work of South Africa’s most important outsider artist. 

I would very much like to thank Elzilda Becker and Merwelene van der Merwe and her team for telling Helen’s story with such passion, and for sharing their unique interpretation of 

the light, free spirit, and magic of Helen’s world. 

André Marais 

CHAIRMAN: OWL HOUSE FOUNDATION 

VIII 


FOR THE LOVE OF LIGHT 1

Rather than relying on interviews with those who may have known Helen, I chose to immerse myself in her art and environment, attempting to understand the depth of her 

experience. Helen's story is one of isolation, rejection, and, ultimately, tragedy. Her unwavering pursuit of light, even at the cost of her own well-being, reveals the profound connection 

she felt to this elusive element. Her name, Helen, meaning "Light," has a poignant significance in this context. 

Helen Martins' art is a testament to her idiosyncratic obsession and singular vision. Her work transcends the boundaries of her immediate environment, leaving a legacy for Nieu- 

Bethesda, the Karoo, and South Africa as a whole. 

The Owl House has become an iconic feature of Nieu-Bethesda, attracting artists and tourists to this charming town and its surrounding region. It has been pivotal in shaping the 

town's character and contributing to its success. 

Helen's fascination with Edward FitzGerald's translation of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat added yet another layer of inspiration to her work. This 19th-century literary phenomenon, 

which transformed the Persian mathematician and astronomer into a celebrated poet, resonated deeply with Helen and found its way into her art. 

EDITOR’S NOTE 

Welcome to For the Love of Light: The Owl House, A Visual Journey, an enchanting art book that invites you to embark on a captivating exploration of the world of Helen Martins 

and her extraordinary creation, the Owl House. This is not your typical art catalogue or academic dissertation; it is a heartfelt journey by creative souls into the profound artistry and 

unique vision that define this remarkable place. 

The pages of this book take you on a journey through Helen's world, inviting you to explore her artistic process and witness the transformation of everyday materials into profound 

symbols of beauty and spirituality. Helen's unconventional materials, such as cement, broken glass, and discarded china, defied traditional artistic norms but resulted in works that 

continue to captivate and inspire. 

We visited the Owl House several times over the year it took to create the book. We photographed in the freezing Karoo nights, under crystal stars in the ink-blue sky, in the pink 

sunsets, during the strange blue moon in October. We sat half-frozen in dark corners for hours, waiting for the light to change, fascinated by how the house transformed from sombre 

to golden to flaming red to icy blue in the moonlight. You will see images taken in the mist, in the rain, in the summer, and in the winter. At night, when the queen of the night blooms, 

and early in the morning, when all is still and grey. 

Helen Martins, a recluse living in the remote village of Nieu-Bethesda, South Africa, embarked on an artistic odyssey that has left an indelible mark on the world. As the editor and 

art director of this book, I had the privilege of immersing myself in her world, attempting to see the world as she did, and to understand her distinctive perspective. I visited the Owl 

House at various times of the day and night, observing how light interacted with the coloured windows, experimenting with smoke, rain, water, and light to recreate the ethereal 

wonderworld she envisioned. 

To capture the essence of Helen's vision, I collaborated with the renowned photographer Merwelene van der Merwe, who fearlessly embraced my unconventional requests to work 

with smoke, light, and water. She skilfully captured the enchantment of the Owl House, allowing us to glimpse the world through Helen's eyes. The captions accompanying the 

images were thoughtfully crafted by Mimi and Susan Greyling. Guest writers Daniel van der Merwe, Melvyn Minaar, and Wilhelm van Rensburg also shared their knowledge, making 

the book a diverse and exciting read. 

The Owl House and the Camel Yard constantly surprised us. We kept finding new secrets with every visit, and I am sure many are still to be discovered. We asked the question many 

times: Was the placement of every object, sliver of coloured glass, and mirror done with intent? Did she know that the angels in daylight would change into fiery-eyed monsters as 

the sun set? These questions will keep us, and all visitors, spellbound to her magical world as we visit it again and again, yearning to see what Helen saw. 

We invite you to embark on this exploration of Helen Martins and the Owl House through the pages of For the Love of Light: The Owl House, A Visual Journey. May it inspire you, as 

it has inspired many before, to appreciate the transformative power of art and the boundless depths of human creativity. 

2 FOR THE LOVE OF LIGHT 


CONTENTS 

THE LANDSCAPE: Daniël van die Merwe 8 

HELEN MARTINS – OUTSIDER: Melvyn Minnaar 12 

FRONT VERANDAH 20 

THE ENTRANCE HALL 30 

THE DINING ROOM 42 

THE SITTING ROOM 58 

THE KITCHEN 84 

THE PANTRY 110 

THE HONEYMOON ROOM 116 

THE GREEN ROOM 130 

THE LONG BEDROOM 150 

THE BATHROOM 166 

THE LION’S DEN 174 

BLUEBEARD’S CHAMBER 178 

THE BACK STOEP 182 

OMAR KHAYYAM 184 

WILLIAM BLAKE 198 

TEXTURES AND MATERIALS: Daniël van die Merwe 208 

THE EAST, PYRAMIDS AND CAMELS 224 

SUN, MOON AND STARS 240 

OWLS AND BIRDS 252 

RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY 259 

MERMAIDS, WOMEN AND WONDROUS CREATURES 276 

MOVEMENT IN MINDSCAPES: OUTSIDER ART IN SOUTH AFRICA: Wilhelm van Rensburg 298 

BIOGRAPHY 309 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: FOR THE LOVE OF LIGHT: THE OWL HOUSE, A VISUAL JOURNEY 310 





THE LANDSCAPE 

Daniël van die Merwe 

Its ancient San calling '!’Aukarob' speaks of 'origin', and the Karoo remains a unique palaeontoloical, palaeoethological, geological, ecological, bionomic, mythical, spiritual, and 

historic landscape. Its primordiality is accentuated in the desolation and silence of its vast landscapes and climate extremities. It is a land that speaks of millennia of stories. 

At first, a vast shallow sea and part of Gondwanaland, it teemed with reptilian creatures called mesosaurs. The area transformed 90 million years later into a lush marshland 

inhabited by a completely different group of mammal-like reptiles, which evolved to give rise to the first primitive mammals. Nowhere on Earth is this transition from reptile to 

mammal — so crucial to our evolution as humans — as well documented as in the rocks of the Karoo. These specimens, dating back 250 million years, predate the dinosaurs by 

several millennia. The wet Karoo period was brought to a dramatic close by the massive volcanic outpourings of the Drakensberg lavas, fossilising swamps and its inhabitants into 

eternal shale graves and creating a semi-desert landscape. As an arid biodiversity hotspot, this extraordinary biome is now home to the richest succulent flora on Earth. 

The last of the Stone Age peoples, the Khoisan, inhabited Nieu-Bethesda’s fertile valley for thousands of years until the late 19th century. Khoikhoi herded their sheep and cattle in 

the age-old pastoral pattern, and the San followed their traditional nomadic pursuits of hunting. European contact with the Khoikhoi degraded them into herders and servants. For 

close on a century, the San were hunted and harried until decimated and broken. 

The Graaff-Reinet region became the first South African republic in 1795. It changed hands between the Dutch and the British until the Great Trek of 1835–1846. Some of the most 

famous Voortrekker leaders lived in this area. Writers such as Olive Schreiner, Eve Palmer, and Athol Fugard called this land their home. The human tales woven over centuries speak 

of a land of triumph and tragedy, conquest, and survival. 

Nieu-Bethesda shares in the enduring mystery of mermaids. Ancient San rock paintings depict mermaid-like creatures, often shown to be holding something, which means they had 

arms and not wings. Could it be that they were not mythical, but creatures encountered and recorded by the San people? Mermaids symbolised the power of the feminine, and their 

iridescent scales mirror a reflection into the soul. They encouraged us to explore the realm of the unconscious and reach a higher state of consciousness. Today, this ancient water 

spirit is said to be re-emerging to return us to that state of higher consciousness. The Karoo mermaid reminds us to rejoin and focus on Earth and its consciousness. 

With typical Karoo houses, decoration is kept to the minimum to create a stripped-down architectural language. Imported materials, such as corrugated iron, allowed a transition 

from earlier flat 'brakdakke' and thatched roofs, and the evolution of the stoep (verandah) as a 'clip-on' extension. Mostly facing the street, the stoep becomes an important 

threshold between indoor and outdoor, as a semi-public living space. Furnished with plants and furniture, it allows for social interaction and cohesion among the villagers. Helen’s 

verandah never became that. It remained empty except for her owl sculpture. This signifies her desire for privacy and entrenches her status as a strange outsider. Architecture is the 

embodiment of place and space. It is here where we find home and ourselves. When we identify ourselves, we use it as our reference. Yet, there will always be an interdependence 

between the environment and the house. The landscape informs architecture directly and symbolically as an interpretation and a relationship. To dwell means to belong to a given 

place. When we enter our house, we bring the outer world with us. Our homes become a place of refuge. For Helen Martins, home became a place of gathering and creating, a place 

where she could manifest her own personal world, memories, and dreams. Her home became a vessel of insoluble unity between life and place. 

In architecture, identification and orientation are important psychological concepts. To live meaningfully, we must identify and relate with our home. Helen reconstructs hers into 

an expression of 'things' to become her. The manipulation of light through various applications of coloured glass allowed her to recreate her personal architecture of atmosphere 

and mood. To orientate ourselves means to familiarise our environment. It gives us emotional security. Thus, Helen creatively repurposes the functions and the atmospheres of 

her home to provide her with this. 

Vernacular or regional architecture evolves as a direct response to culture, local climatic conditions, and the availability of materials. Typical Karoo architecture developed 

predominantly from the British colonial and cultural influences of the 18th and 19th centuries, which can be categorised stylistically into three groups: Victorian, Georgian, and Cape 

Dutch. Typical characteristics include a street-facing public façade and quite often a prominent covered verandah as protection against the harsh sun. The Owl House reflects this, 

built mostly with local materials such as stone and handmade bricks and plastered in a textured cement-lime-based plaster. Thick walls and high ceilings allow for thermal comfort 

in the extreme climatic conditions. Shutters cover the windows to keep out the intense heat of the day and the cold night air in winter. 





HELEN MARTINS – OUTSIDER 


The power of The Road to Mecca by Athol Fugard and the play’s success are wired into the complicated social situation of a timid woman in a distant, isolated – and very South 

African – place. She found in art-making, space for her human condition. Yet while her life ended in tragedy, her legacy is literally a shrine to individuality and invention. That one of 

the world’s greatest playwrights tapped into the small and also so universal world of Helen Martins, and that it is all so very true, compels the dramatic work’s theatrical command. 

Helen Martins lived in small, real community, and she changed her environment, as a means of survival, into a majestic work of art and theatre. If ‘outsider art’, once had a demeaning 

edge, contemporary culture nowadays affords her work full, universal creative status. Pilgrims to Nieu-Bethesda speak for themselves. Her life, in fact, is a play. Some would say a 

tragedy, others would call it a celebration of great individual feminist invention. Born in the village as the last of ten children to Hester and Piet Martins on December 23, 1897, the 

weight of the family on Helen Elizabeth was acute. Named after an older sister, one of four children who died, her father called her ‘helletjie’ – the nick name ‘little hell’ may or may 

not have indicated an early obstreperousness on her part. It is important to understand in the context of her ‘alternative art’ later that her family was conservative in the conventional 

white religious culture of the time in the deep platteland of the Karoo – the church in Nieu-Bethesda was and is a towering beacon. 

She left school at standard seven, went for teacher training at a college and taught for a few years at a small school in Wakkerstroom and perhaps Pretoria. (Much of the Martins 

history is a clouded past). 



She met a young, dashing teacher and, in 1920, married Willem Johannes Pienaar, oddly not in the village church but in a private house. Helen was 22 and Johannes 27. Pienaar 

was flamboyant, outspoken and a man of the theatre. It is said that her father wasn’t taken with him. From the start the marriage wasn’t easy. The couple lived up North for a 

while. He stayed in Volksrust, she taught in the Cullinan mining community, but they performed together at times in plays that Pienaar produced. One such was a musical Saul. The 

relationship deteriorated, with Helen probably having had an abortion (she never wanted children), and Johannes playing the field with women. They divorced when he sued her for 

desertion in 1926. A meagre alimony didn’t counter a large debt Johannes left when he departed overseas. 

To say Helen was adrift after this, is also to say little is known of where she found herself. She seems to have worked in Cape Town for a while, but about 1928 she returned to 

Nieu-Bethesda. Both parents were ailing and, as the only unmarried sibling, she had to take on their care. In 1941 her beloved mother Hester died of breast cancer, and she had sole 

responsibility of her cantankerous father Piet, exiled to the back room now known as The Lion’s Den at the Owl House. He died in 1945. 

A very small town community and its communal suspicions and gossip were not a comfortable fit for the woman who had increasingly become self-educated in the worlds of 

literature, religion, theatre and art. As her unconventional views took hold, she became more reclusive – adding to the alienation from the locals. Yet Helen had a secret life here too. 

A new man moved into the village in 1939. Johannes Hattingh brought along his wife and daughters. He was a tall man and, it is said, was struck by lightning while working on a roof. 

Years later another bolt would damage his brain. He and Helen became friends (perhaps something more) and he helped plan and plot when she started her mission to transform 

the dreary cottage into the space of light and magic. In 1947 Hattingh and family moved to Peddie, but he often came visiting and stayed. Because he was so tall, Martins extended 

his bed in the Green Room. Helen, by the way, didn’t sleep in one room only and moved nightly from one to the other to experience her environment. 

Another man came into her life in 1954. The widower Johannes Machiel Niemand was ten years older than she. They got married in Graaff-Reinet. The reason was never clear, for 

they went their separate ways immediately and divorced a few years on. Light is the key to understanding Helen Martins’ art mission: in and towards the light. Just think how dark 

the Karoo nights then without electricity would be when the gloom in the human condition overpowers. She filled spaces with lamps and candles everywhere, reflecting off mirrors 

and walls. First move was to bring light into the house with bigger windows, removing walls, if need be. For this she employed local builder Piet van der Merwe. It was also his 

contribution that created the fine forms of the dwellings in the Camel Yard. 

When Martins invented the magical medium of sparkling crushed coloured glass (using various methods, including a coffee grinder), another handyman, Jonas Adams helped with 

the tricky technique of sticking it on walls. One can image the amazement of these ordinary locals working on things that for many didn’t make sense. The star performer, finally, was 

Koos Malgas and Martins called him her 'artist'. He worked for her for twelve years until her death, and probably delved deeper into her creative psyche than anyone. She showed 

him what she wanted and he made the prototypes – until she was satisfied and then he installed it. Koos Malgas was the sorcerer’s apprentice in every happy way. 

When the call went up to preserve the Owl House in 1980, there was no other way than to call on Malgas, his knowledge and expertise. The house would not look the way it does 

now if Malgas did not return to spend his last days in his and Martins’ town of birth. Helen Martins was well into middle age when her journey of transformation began and lasted 

some three decades of planned and ad hoc invention. Not a corner of the family home was left untouched in creating ‘her world’. 

She got by on a meagre pension and spent most of it on the things needed for her creation: paint, wire, cement, labour. Self-sustenance was of less importance to her. Not worried 

about appearance, her increasingly forlorn, tatty look increased the image of scary eccentricity to locals. But the Camel Yard with more than 500 cement statues, structures and 

bas reliefs was a natural draw for locals and visitors who had heard about it. She liked the attention, but was often shy of her shoddy appearance. At Christmas all the lamps and 

candles would be lit and she opened the door to visitors – her spiritual world of magic shared with whoever wanted to be touched. 

Yet as she aged, her psychic gloom manifested also in deteriorating physicality of worn hands, arthritis, damaged feet, lack of proper sustenance and fading eyesight. Loneliness 

and depression grew darker and darker. On Sunday, August 8, 1976 she died a horrible death, having swallowed caustic soda. 

While her legacy remains in a corner of the Karoo, Fugard’s masterpiece The Road to Mecca took her life and tribulations as an artist to the world. 





To see a World in a Grain of Sand 

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, 

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 

And Eternity in an hour. 

William Blake: Auguries of Innocence, 1803 



FRONT VERANDAH 

At the approach, Helen Martins’ home on River Street appears to be a typical Karoo house with a traditional verandah running along the front. On the roof, an owl sits watching over 

the street like a sentinel. Walking up the steps of the verandah, the visitor is greeted by a menagerie of cement owls perching in various poses. From the first impression, the theme 

of owls is introduced very prominently into the world Helen created. 

A large owl mosaic on the wall is one of the first figures to catch the eye. According to interviews conducted by her biographers, this owl was made by her first artistic collaborator, 

Piet van der Merwe, a local builder. Piet recounted that Helen would walk to his house early in the morning to fetch him for work. 

It is believed that the northern end of the verandah was enclosed with wire during Helen’s life and that she kept live birds in this makeshift aviary. 

As you approach the front door, you are greeted by the legend 'The Owl House', written in bold letters above the entrance. Declaring that you are entering a singularly dream-like 

space is the front door encrusted in white crushed glass, resembling the freshly fallen snow that enchanted Helen throughout her life. Piet van der Merwe was responsible for laying 

down this glass and painting white dots to create a snow effect on the verandah floor. 

In a 1975 letter to Don Maclennan describing her fear of snow damaging the sculptures in the garden, Helen wrote: "Snow — strange, I love the sight of it, so much; and yet it has 

brought destruction; — well over hundreds of Rands. How I should love to see it at the foot of Mount Hebron, when it was all snow white." 





The Owl that calls upon the Night 

Speaks the Unbelievers fright 

He who shall hurt the little Wren 

Shall never be belovd by Men 

William Blake: Auguries of Innocence, 1803 







THE ENTRANCE HALL 

Stepping over the threshold, you are enveloped in warm amber light filtered through a pane of coloured glass and a fanlight in the front door. The visitor is transported into an Oriental 

fantasy, richly fed by Helen’s passion for Edward Fitzgerald’s culturally influential translation of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat. 

The painted ceramic heads of two turbaned men welcome the visitor. These wall ornaments were produced by the Bossons Company, an English pottery firm. Their collection of 

heads, representing different ethnicities, was hugely popular in the 1960s and 1970s, introducing characters that symbolised a life of freedom from the structures of the modern 

world to the domestic sphere. The head on the left is Persian, a distinct nod to Khayyam, who was from Nishapur in Persia. 

A Persian-style carpet hangs on one wall, flanked by a crescent-shaped mirror. Two more mirrors are positioned on either side of the door leading to the living room, a second 

crescent moon and an outsized hand mirror, through which you observe yourself passing into Helen’s inner world. 

At the door to the living room, you are met by a sinister doll acting as a doorstop and a bottle of canned fruit preserved by Helen herself. Leading from the entrance hall are three 

doors — to the living room, dining room, and the bedroom known as the honeymoon room. The entrance hall was the first room Helen started with her project to transform her 

parents’ home into a house of glass and light. 

The house can be seen as a physical representation of her psyche, and the objects she filled it with informed and inspired the sculptures that populated her garden. 



Houses are really bodies. We connect ourselves 

with walls, roofs, and objects just as we hang on to 

our livers, skeletons, flesh and bloodstream. 

Leonora Carrington: The Hearing Trumpet, 1974 











THE DINING ROOM 

On the dining room table, a piece that replaced the original when the Martins family removed furniture from the house after Helen’s death, are two leather souvenir camels given to 

Helen by her well-travelled sister Alida Seymour. These camels are believed to have been the model for those in the yard. Also displayed on the table are a bowl of kitschy plastic 

fruit, lamps, candlesticks, a record player, and a pile of vinyl records by artists including country star Jim Reeves, crooner Mario Lanza, father of South African country music Charles 

Jacobie, and the Norman Luboff Choir. 

The dining room is dominated by the faces of two anthropomorphised suns, one yellow with green eyes and one green with yellow eyes. They are painted on a sash window facing 

the stoep, the only direct source of light in the room, and covered with finely crushed glass. When the setting sun shines on the west-facing glass panes, a monster-like image is 

projected into the room, bringing to mind the famous line from Shakespeare’s Othello: "O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; it is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it 

feeds on". The dining room walls are plastered with period wallpaper, but clear crushed glass was applied over it, creating a shimmering effect. The ceiling in this room is painted in 

a geometric design with shades of green, yellow, and blue. As with the ceiling in other rooms, it is covered with glass. The eight-pointed star in the corner of one of the rectangular 

mirrors strongly resembles a compass. 

Helen spent most of her life with the Compassberg, the highest peak in the Sneeuberg range and the former province of the Cape, constantly watching over her. The mountain was 

clearly a powerful symbol in her art, as both Koos Malgas and Jill Wenman reported that she created a replica in the far southeast corner of her yard. On different walls around the 

room are three of the many mirrors Helen had specially cut, two crescent moons and a large sunburst, which make particularly spectacular reflections when light shines on them 

directly at night. Crescent moons are symbols that repeatedly appear throughout the house and yard and are strongly associated with Islam, a religion that fascinated Helen to the 

degree that she corresponded with the Young Men’s Muslim Association in an attempt to acquire photos of Mecca. However, the moons also provide a subtle feminine contrast to 

the almost overbearingly masculine suns on the window. According to those close to her, Helen was nocturnal and would often wander around her house and yard, admiring the 

mysterious world of the moon. 







• The Sunshine Polish tin, an unassuming 

object that may go unnoticed in most 

households, profoundly influenced Helen 

Martins’ artistic world. Its significance 

transcended its practical purpose as it 

found its way into various facets of her 

artistry. From windows to ceilings, and 

even embedded in cement, the Sunshine 

Polish tin made its mark in unexpected 

places throughout her iconic Owl House 

in Nieu-Bethesda. As the sun’s light 

danced upon it throughout the day, 

the mood within these spaces shifted 

dramatically. With the changing light, 

what was once a cheerful and eternally 

smiling sun could cast a haunting 

and unsettling mask upon the dining 

room table. This transformation, from 

brightness to darkness, encapsulates 

the essence of Helen Martins’ art — an 

intricate interplay between light and 

shadow, joy and melancholy, and the 

ever-evolving emotions she sought to 

convey through her unique creations. 







SAINTS 

A reproduction of a mawkish image 

of a female saint in a Roman-style 

amphitheatre surrounded by inert lions 

adorns one of the walls. The image is 

possibly a representation of either Saint 

Thecla or Saint Blandina. According 

to apocryphal writings, Thecla refused 

to marry and chose to remain a virgin 

and preach the gospel after becoming 

a follower of Paul the Apostle. Legend 

has it that Thecla, a 1st-century resident 

of modern Anatolia, was thrown to the 

lions, but the beasts refused to attack her. 

According to the writings of Eusebius, 

Saint Blandina was a young slave who 

withstood torture despite her frail body. 

Like Thecla, lions in the amphitheatre 

reportedly spared her. 





THE SITTING ROOM 

The sitting room has a welcoming and comforting ambience. On the wall hangs one heart-shaped and two rectangular mirrors, 

among many Helen had cut to her own specifications by suppliers across the country over many years. The mirrors were carefully 

positioned to create a play of light and reflected images, changing throughout the day and night and as you move around the room. 

Engraved into the top corner of one of the rectangular mirrors is an eight-pointed star which projects a shadow onto opposite walls 

when light is directed onto it. Reflections and the play of light were primary among Helen’s artistic obsessions. Following the death of 

both her parents, she asserted her ownership of her childhood home by making extensive renovations, chiefly the installation of huge 

windows with clear and coloured panes. Almost the entire east-facing wall of the sitting room is glass with an orange centre panel and 

an amber fanlight – quite a bold interior decorating statement for the time. 

As with the rest of the house, the walls and ceilings are painted in geometric patterns and covered in crushed, coloured glass. A focal 

point is the cement statue of an owl with outstretched wings, embedded with shards of broken bottles. Sitting in its concave face is 

a baby trying to put his foot into his mouth. The naked baby is one of only two in the house or yard with a penis. A twin sits near the 

moon-gate in the camel yard. 

Flanking the door leading to the hallway are two glass-fronted cabinets containing a collection of china and lamps, among the many 

Helen lit up for guests during night-time visits on special occasions. On a strip of wall between the kitchen and pantry is one of two 

pictures in the house which appear to be of mythological lovers Eros and Psyche. Charmingly, in certain light it reflects the heart mirror. 

Hung next to one of the rectangular mirrors, is one of the house’s many reproductions of the Mona Lisa. 

HEART 

The heart was commonly associated 

with romantic love by the twentieth 

century. During the Victorian era, it was 

already well on its way towards becoming 

a signifier of kitsch. The only internal 

organ to have a universally-recognised 

schematic symbol, the earliest use 

of the icon can be traced at least ten 

thousand years back with the pictogram 

being used for unknown purposes by 

European Ice Age hunters. The earliest 

known use of the symbol to represent 

romantic love was an illustration in the 

13th century French manuscript Roman 

de la poire showing a lover handing his 

heart to his beloved. 



SHELLS 

A collection of shells is displayed on 

a mirror cabinet and other locations 

throughout the house. Her niece Betty 

le Roux recalled Helen accompanied 

her family on a holiday to Umbogintwini, 

south of Durban, following the death of 

her father in 1945. Betty reported that 

her aunt collected two sacks of shells on 

the beach. The shells are a memento of 

an actual trip she took, unlike most of the 

items in the house that were linked to a 

world of her imagination. 



MOONLIGHT 

When interviewed by Susan Imrie Ross, 

Jill Wenman said Helen saw the moon as 

of far greater importance in her life than 

the sun and according to many friends 

and acquaintances, she loved viewing 

the house she had created in the moonlight. 

In most mythologies, the sun is male and 

the moon is female. The harsh yellow 

light of the sun is often linked to masculine 

attributes while the soft, blue light of 

the moon conjures up symbolism associated 

with women. The moon appears 

in cyclical phases over the course of 28 

days, which corresponds to the menstrual 

cycle. 

The light of the moon is a reflection of 

the sun’s, which mirrors the traditional 

position of women in patriarchal 

societies and often serves as a 

metaphor for female passivity. In a more 

positive framing, the Virgin Mary is often 

associated with the moon as she reflects 

the light of her Son. 

A famous line from William Shakespeare’s 

Timon of Athens reads: "The 

moon’s an arrant thief, And her pale fire 

she snatches from the sun." 



SPRINGBOK 

A leaping tin springbok is placed behind the yellow pane of the fanlight. For most of the 

period of white rule, the springbok was the national animal of South Africa. Although it 

came to be associated with apartheid, the symbol had a wider meaning in the decades 

following union. The animal was incorporated in the coat of arms adopted in 1910. 

During World War Two, the two hundred thousand South African men who fought in 

the Union Defence Force were fondly known as Springboks and the Springbok Legion, 

an organisation promoting soldiers’ rights, was prominent in opposing apartheid 

during its early years. 

PENTAGRAM 

A pentagram nestled in a crescent moon has been placed outside the window and 

can be seen through the bottom corner of the orange pane. Both are very prominent 

symbols in Islam, a religion which fascinated Helen. The pentagram is known as 

Solomon’s Seal and is a very common amulet in Islamic magic. King Solomon is 

mentioned in the Quran as having been gifted with the power to understand the speech 

of birds and animals and the ability to command jinn. In the Islamic world, wearing this 

symbol is believed to protect from physical and spiritual harm. 

STUFFED BIRDS 

Almost as if frozen in amber, a group of small stuffed brown birds, referred to as little 

brown jobs (LBJs) by bird watchers, are attached to branches with wire. The effect is 

very natural and brings to mind a live flock busy at work on a spring day. 

The scene is reminiscent of quatrain 72 of The Rubaiyat: Alas, that Spring should vanish 

with the Rose! 

That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close! 

The Nightingale that in the Branches sang, Ah, 

whence, and whither flown again, who knows! 





COMPASS 

The eight-pointed star in the corner of 

one of the rectangular mirrors strongly 

resembles a compass. Helen spent 

most of her life with the Compassberg, 

the highest peak of the Sneeuberg range 

and the former province of the Cape, 

constantly watching over her. The mountain 

was clearly a powerful symbol in her 

art as both Koos Malgas and Jill Wenman 

reported that she created a replica 

in the far south-east corner of her yard. 



LAMPS 

Arranged around the room, bracketed 

to walls and hanging from the ceiling 

are dozens of oil lamps. Although Helen 

loved lighting up her house and went 

to great lengths to obtain lamps and 

candles in different sizes and colours, 

they would have been vital home items 

as Nieu-Bethesda was the last town 

in South Africa to receive electricity in 

1991. It’s interesting to reflect on her 

work knowing she lived her whole life 

without electric light. 



EROS AND PSYCHE 

The first known version of the tale of Eros and Psyche is in the Metamorphoses of 

Apuleius. A popular narrative poem of the myth was published in 1885 by Robert 

Bridges, later to become British poet laureate. In the myth, Psyche is the youngest 

of three princesses. She undergoes many trials set by her mother-in-law Aphrodite, 

jealous of her beauty, the last of which leads to her peering into a box containing 

captured beauty belonging to the goddess of the underworld, Persephone. This beauty 

spells death but she is revived by the love of her husband Eros and is made immortal 

by Zeus. A popular Victorian interpretation is that the soul must pass through suffering 

and death before reaching immortal happiness. William Blake, an admirer of Apuleius, 

drew on elements of the myth in his prophetic books. In Greek, psyche can mean 

butterfly or soul. Helen was very much inspired by Blake’s work and made a cement 

sculpture of a chrysalis with a human face from one of the engravings in The Gates 

of Paradise. 



EROS AND PSYCHE II 

As the day unfolds, the Eros and Psyche sculpture experiences a remarkable 

transformation in the quality of light that bathes it. A gentle, soft green light envelops 

the scene in the morning, casting a serene ambience. However, as the afternoon 

progresses, the sun’s trajectory causes its rays to pass through the Pentagram 

adorning the sitting room window. This subtle celestial dance results in a profound 

change in the environment, as a pair of golden eyes appear to glow, reflecting upon 

the intricate details of Eros and Psyche. This captivating play of light and shadow 

mirrors the essence of the myth itself, where Psyche’s journey from mortal trials to 

immortal happiness is illuminated by the enduring power of love. This theme has 

captured the imagination of artists and poets throughout history, including the likes 

of Robert Bridges and William Blake, who found inspiration in the timeless tale of Eros 

and Psyche. 



SAMARKAND 

Framed and hanging to the side of the amber window is a little picture of a Middle 

Eastern carpet seller sleeping among his wares. 

The picture is reproduced in cement and glass in the yard and clearly had an influence 

on Helen’s art. The caption seemingly refers to Omar Khayyam. Famous for his 

contributions to mathematics and astronomy prior to the publication of Edward 

Fitzgerald’s translation of The Rubaiyat, Khayyam spent time in Samarkand as a young 

man under the patronage of the governor of the city in the eleventh century. Samarkand 

is one of the world’s oldest cities and was a vital point on the Silk Road, which stretched 

from the north western frontier of China all the way to Syria and Persia. 

For thousands of years, the city was a cosmopolitan centre of learning and a vital 

node on the trading highway linking civilisations as far apart as ancient Rome and Han 

China. In eighth century T’ang China, Samarkand peaches were famous for their size 

and rich colour and known as golden peaches. 



MONA LISA 

Four prints of Leonardo de Vinci’s 

celebrated painting are hung in the house 

and the image is reproduced repeatedly 

in the yard. The painting only gained its 

status as the most well-known artwork 

in the world in the 20th century. It first 

received massive media attention after 

an Italian carpenter, Vincenzo Peruggia, 

stole it from the Louvre. At one point 

during the two-year investigation into the 

theft, Pablo Picasso and poet Guillaume 

Apollinaire were suspects. Marcel 

Duchamp’s treatment of the image 

as one of his readymades, complete 

with moustache and irreverent caption, 

did much to catapult it to the realm of 

popular culture touchstone and kitsch 

icon. 







THE KITCHEN 

Strikingly, the kitchen is not equipped in the slightest for cooking or preparing any 

refreshments other than tea, which Helen relished. Tea pots, cups, cosies and tins 

are arranged throughout the room. Among the British brand names displayed on 

tea tins she kept are Mazawattee and Horniman’s, which are sold to this day, and 

the discontinued Blue Cross, a collector’s item today. An imposing object that 

immediately catches the eye is a very sinister monkey-like head attached to the 

top of a tea cosy. A large fish, a number of owls and little cement figures with 

outstretched arms, used as candle holders, adorn the room. 

On the ceiling is painted a huge version of the many sun faces inspired by the 

Sunbeam floor polish tin. Malgas later said it was the artwork he was most proud 

of creating. He had to lie on his back on scaffolding, similarly to Michelangelo 

painting the Sistine Chapel, to complete the work. 

Red, a primal colour and among the first humans utilised in art, dominates the 

room. The colour of fire and blood, it is one of the most symbolically potent of 

all, associated with everything from man’s mastery of fire to Christ’s sacrifice and 

political revolution. 

Hung next to the recess where the stove should be is a reproduction of The Penitent 

Magdalene by 18th century Italian painter Pompeo Batoni. Helen’s version appears 

to be a coloured print of an 1839 lithograph by German artist Franz Hanfstaengl. 

The original painting was destroyed during an Allied bombing of Dresden in 1945. 

A topic covered by many masters, often including a skull to represent the necessity 

of repentance (memento mori) and an open prayer book, it shows a meditative 

Mary Magdalene. According to Catholic tradition, she was a woman of ill repute 

who became a follower of Jesus. 



The print on the wall above the cabinet is 

Harmony by Albert Henry Collings, a late 

Victorian English artist best known for 

portraiture. 

It depicts a troubadour and his lady 

love, a subject popular among romantic 

artists in the 19th century. It recreated an 

idealised medieval past with a fairytale 

atmosphere. In certain parts of Europe, 

troubadours were travelling poets and 

musicians who dealt with topics such as 

chivalry and courtly love. 



According to Imrie Ross, Helen used 

her pension to buy cement and pay 

Koos for his work on the sculptures. 

Tea, bran rusks, bread, and other food 

donated by concerned neighbours were 

her main sources of nutrition. It’s clear 

that she doesn’t care about food when 

she’s in the kitchen. The previous stove 

nook is now mostly ornamental and has 

only little practical use. Helen’s nextdoor 

neighbour since 1927, Mrs Tiny 

Hartzenberg, said, ‘Helen discarded the 

stove in the garden long ago.’ 

(Interview, Hartzenberg, T. 1989). 



An imposing object that immediately 

catches the eye is a very sinister monkeylike 

head attached to the top of a tea 

cosy. A large fish, a number of owls and 

little cement figures with outstretched 

arms, used as candle holders, adorn the 

room. 





















THE PANTRY 

The pantry shelves are lined with mason jars filled with crushed glass in different colours, turning it into a storeroom not for food but 

for the basic ingredients she utilised to turn her home into a visual feast. There are also some bottles of fruit she canned herself and 

never consumed as she thought them pretty, clearly prioritising the sense of sight over taste. Neighbours would often bring her plates 

of food as Helen neglected to feed herself when left to her own devices, subsisting on dozens of cups of tea. 

Before procuring coffee grinders to perform the task, Helen crushed the glass by hand with a hammer. People remarked on the state 

of her hands, which were covered in cuts, and her dirty nails. Local children were paid in sweets, often with a type of toffee called 

tameletjie which Helen made herself with quinces and boiled sugar, to collect coloured bottles dumped around the town. Some of 

them later recalled that she refused to accept broken bottles for fear that the children would cut themselves. At the time of his death, 

family members claimed Malgas had suffered lung damage from inhaling cement and glass dust. 

Residents of the town who knew Helen in her younger years, before she removed the stove from the kitchen and dumped it in the 

garden, reported that she was a good cook. Numerous recipes cut out of newspapers and written out by hand on scraps of paper were 

tucked into drawers and books around the house. 

The room has a warm glow from an orange pane of glass that was inserted at the top of the sole window. Unusually, the pantry is 

entered from the living room and not the adjoining kitchen. 







THE HONEYMOON ROOM 

The room is overwhelmed by the colour red and has quite a dark aspect. However, when the late afternoon sun hits the window pane, 

on which a red sun with jealous green eyes has been painted and encrusted with glass, the room is suffused with an eerie glow. 

According to various friends, this was the one bedroom Helen never slept in. 

There is a large mirrored wardrobe, which contained clothes sent to her by her sister Alida, and two beds with red covers. Red light 

pours in through a half-moon window inserted in the wall separating this room from the bedroom known as the long room. 

On the wall hangs a cross-shaped mirror, an interesting juxtaposition considering that the room’s overall theme and the name given to 

it by Helen herself strongly suggest carnality. 

The colour red is traditionally associated with themes as diverse as the blood of Christ, romantic love and prostitution. The word 'red' 

means 'beautiful' and 'colourful' in many different languages and the colour itself has very strong cultural symbolism, often being used 

as part of religious rituals. In Christian iconography, Mary Magdalene, an associate of Christ believed in some traditions to have been 

a former prostitute, is often depicted in red. In Revelation, the great harlot of Babylon is dressed in purple and scarlet and in the 19th 

century, hanging red lamps in areas where prostitutes plied their trade was traditional. 

Helen only gave names to three of the rooms in the house, the Honeymoon Room, the Lion’s Den and Bluebeard’s Chamber, indicating 

that this room held symbolic significance to her. Originally the main bedroom in the house, it would likely have been where her parents 

slept when the whole family lived together. Ironically, the suns painted on windows throughout the house blocked out the rays of the 

real sun. 











GOLLIES 

Two dolls lie together on one of the beds. These dolls, originally called golliwogs and 

ubiquitous in Western playrooms in the first half of the 20th century, have become 

extremely controversial due to their racist connotations. However, it is unlikely that it 

would have been a point of contention during Helen’s lifetime. 

These dolls were inspired by a character that first appeared in a series of children’s 

books by Florence and Bertha Upton, published in England from 1895. The earliest 

gollies were homemade rag dolls and the characters became so popular that British 

jam manufacturer Robertson’s used them as mascots. In French composer Claude 

Debussy’s piano suite Children’s Corner, dedicated to his daughter Emma-Claude, the 

last piece is entitled Golliwog’s Cake Walk. At the time, she had an English nanny. The 

Uptons’ character was loveable but by the time Enid Blyton introduced the character to 

her Noddy series, he had become extremely unsavoury. 

Above the other bed hangs a sentimental picture of a sleeping child. This is a 

reproduction of Fast Asleep, an 1870 painting by French-born British neoclassical 

painter Sophie Gengembre Anderson. Unusual for a Victorian woman, she was a 

successful working artist. Although she came from an artistic family, Anderson was 

largely self-taught. Her work was widely exhibited, even at the Royal Academy in 

London. Anderson specialised in portraits of children and women, usually in a rural 

setting, and was noted for the use of light in her work. She is sometimes classified 

as a Pre-Raphaelite painter. Her 1870 painting Elaine, inspired by Tennyson’s poem 

Lancelot and Elaine, was the first public collection purchase of a woman’s work. Her 

art is represented in reputable collections and galleries across the UK and is widely 

reproduced to this day. In 2008, her painting No Walk Today was sold by Sotheby’s for 

£1 million. 





THE GREEN ROOM 

The bedroom leading from the sitting room is overpowered by a single colour, green. Most of the walls and the ceiling are painted in 

different shades of this colour with chartreuse dominating. A large pane of green glass was installed between this room and the long 

bedroom along with the panes in the door leading outside. Stepping into the emerald-bathed room invokes calm – a verdant oasis in 

sharp contrast to the harsh sun-beaten landscape of the Karoo. 

There are two beds, one of which has an extension to make room for a longer mattress, reportedly to accommodate Johannes 

Hattingh, a married man with whom Helen conducted a relationship for decades, as he was very tall. Hattingh helped with some of 

the building work in the house. Mirrors are used to the greatest effect here. Among the seven mirrors is one of a series shaped to 

resemble a heart and a hand-mirror. Helen reportedly had one of her own hand-mirrors copied and enlarged. The top pane of the clear 

glass window features another green sun similar to the pair in the dining room. 

On the floor next to the door is a disturbing hide-covered figure with one human foot and one cloven hoof. According to her long-time 

collaborator Koos Malgas, this was the only piece Helen made herself and she referred to it as her little devil. It has been suggested 

that the deformed feet of the figure might be a projection of Helen’s embarrassment with her own feet as both her little toes were 

amputated in an operation. Another theory is that the figure might represent the two abortions Helen openly admitted to having 

undergone. She confided in friends that she was afraid her children would be born with horns and cloven hoofs. 

According to Susan Imrie Ross’ in-depth study of the Owl House, this room has the most pictures on the walls. In addition to 

family photographs, another reproduction of the Mona Lisa appears along with Psyche and Eros. There are a number of Victorian 

reproductions, some captioned with lines of poetry. 

This is an extract from the first of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese. The poem deals with the intense 

loneliness and sense of impending death Barrett Browning experienced due to her ill health and the surprise she experienced when 

she famously fell in love with her husband Robert Browning at this time.The sonnets are among the most well-known love poems of 

the Victorian age. 

VEILED PRAYING GIRL 

Holy Week in Seville: an Andalusian Girl 

inspired with the Spirit of Semana Santa. 

Celebrated during the last week of Lent 

in many Catholic countries, Holy Week 

features processions depicting the 

Passion of Christ. For someone from an 

austere Afrikaner Calvinist background, a 

festival of this nature would have rivalled 

the exoticism of the orient. 









THE COLOUR GREEN 

In Islam, green never has negative connotations and is a colour the Prophet showed a 

marked fondness for. He often wore a green turban and sometimes used the colour for 

his standard. It’s a colour widely used on the flags of Islamic states and is associated 

with paradise and spring, a time of renewal and rebirth in all cultures. 

In Catholicism, green was declared a middle colour by Pope Innocent III in the 13th 

century, to be used on days with no special significance. However, this was rejected 

by the Reformation and all colours other than black, white and grey were viewed with 

mistrust. Bright colours were considered dishonest and Protestants were discouraged 

from even wearing them. 

Until the 1950s, it was unusual for green to be used in interior decorating in most of the 

West. 

PSYCHE AND EROS 

A smaller colour version of the reproduction in the sitting room is hung on the wall 

with the caption: 

REUNION 

Guess now who holds thee 

“Death” I said; But There 

The Silver Answer Rang. 

Not Death, But Love. 



This Victorian print, captioned The Dawn 

of Heavenly Light depicts Maude Millett, 

the most frequently photographed 

actress at one point in her career. Her 

face would have been familiar to many in 

the Anglo world of the late 19th century. 

As a young woman, Helen and her first 

husband Johannes Pienaar were heavily 

involved in the theatre. Wena Naudé, a 

household name in Afrikaans theatrical 

circles, was Helen’s cousin. 



A sentimental picture of a mother holding an infant up to a picture of its father is 

captioned with the following lines from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s famous poem Break, 

Break, Break: 

O for the touch of a vanish’d hand 

And the sound of a voice that is still 

The elegy was written in the early 1830s after the death of Arthur Henry Hallam, a close 

friend and fellow poet. The poem evokes feelings of loss, nostalgia and loneliness. 

NUDES 

A series of Edwardian studio studies of nudes are displayed in this room and in the 

adjoining bedroom. According to Helen’s niece Betty Crous, her mother Alida, aunt 

Annie and Helen experimented with nude photography, copying the poses assumed 

by the professional models. 

Curiously, nude studies were acceptable in Victorian England, a cultural influence 

on the Cape of Helen’s childhood. Greek nude sculptures were considered to be the 

ultimate expression of beauty, making it acceptable within limits. However, it would 

have been beyond the pale to most rural Calvinist Afrikaners at the time. 









THE LONG BEDROOM 

The north-facing long bedroom is bright and warm and although Helen slept all over the house, sometimes even on a mattress she moved around, this was her favourite room to 

spend the night in. The main windows take up most of the outside-facing wall, allowing light to flood the room. 

According to friends, Helen kept her old clothing in this room. Among the items were fine dresses and shoes which were fashionable when she was a young woman in the 1920s. 

Although she never wore these items in later life, she stipulated in an unwitnessed will that they were not to be sold or given away under any circumstances, suggesting they were 

precious and a reminder of her previous life beyond the confines of Nieu-Bethesda. 

The room contains two of the many cement owl chairs with inverted faces throughout the house and yard. According to her friend Jill Wenman, these were of her own design and 

she was extremely proud of them. The circular table has a single leg in the shape of a coiled snake, an image that appears frequently throughout the work of William Blake, an artist 

and poet she drew inspiration from. 

Mirrors are used to the greatest effect here. Among the seven mirrors is one of a series shaped to resemble a heart and a hand-mirror. Helen reportedly had one of her own handmirrors 

copied and enlarged. The top pane of the clear glass window features another green sun similar to the pair in the dining room. 



GLOOKS 

On the dresser is a bright yellow, furry 

creature, a particularly striking bit of 

kitsch. There was a craze for this novelty 

toy called a Glook in the 1960s and even 

celebrities such as Ringo Starr and Peter 

Sellers owned them. This object hints at 

Helen’s quirky side and an appreciation 

of the irreverent. In a newspaper article at 

the time, toy creator Robert Benson was 

quoted as saying “it has no particular 

use – except that it makes you laugh”. 









SHEEP 

Sheep featured prominently in both 

Helen’s real and imaginary worlds. 

Nieu-Bethesda is surrounded by 

sheep farms and to this day, the 

animals graze in and around the town. 

In the long bedroom are two pictures 

of Jesus as a shepherd, one of the 

most potent metaphors in Christianity. 

Sheep are symbolically used in three 

main senses in the New Testament 

– Jesus as sacrificial lamb, Jesus as 

shepherd of his flock of believers and 

Jesus as shepherd who will separate 

the sheep from the goats at the final 

judgement. 





A photograph of Helen’s mother Hester 

hangs on one of the walls. There are 

no photos of her father, who she had a 

difficult relationship with. Relatives and 

friends recalled that Helen was very fond 

of her mother and that the pair banished 

her father Piet from the main house to an 

outside room. 

Sentimental ornaments and pictures are 

arranged all over. Helen’s passion for 

kitsch objects, Catholic iconography and 

saccharine Victorian images is evident 

throughout the house. These would have 

been in stark contrast to the preferred 

aesthetics of her strict Calvinist milieu 

and the Protestant rejection of ritual and 

ceremony. 



THE BATHROOM 

The bathroom is another room where Helen sacrificed utility to art. The ceiling is extremely low at around 1,64 metres high. A mirror placed on 

the wall illustrates Helen’s small stature of approximately 1,45 metres. The cement bath is very rough in feel and has a strange sectioned-off 

basin on one end. The plumbing is badly planned with the tap not even running into the bath, requiring the use of a jug or bucket to fill it. 

A cement mermaid perches on the edge of the bath while a huge bas relief of a woman in flippers swims across the wall above. Mermaids are 

an unexpected but distinct feature of Karoo mythology. This barren and sparsely populated landscape is rich in tales of ghosts and other supernatural 

creatures. There is a rich oral tradition among Karoo people telling of mermaids who sit combing their long, dark hair at the edge of water 

sources in desolate areas and try to entice hapless passersby to a watery death. 

San rock art found in the Oudtshoorn area of the Little Karoo appears to depict creatures with fins instead of legs and outstretched arms. Some 

argue that these actually depict swallows, associated with rain, and were related to shamanistic rituals while others claim they were adapted 

from European folktales and used to scare children and keep them safe from drowning. 

The floor is a mosaic-like creation of white bottles. Friends reported that Helen wanted to recreate freshly-fallen snow, an effect she also tried 

to replicate on the front stoep by painting spots with white paint all over the floor. Although Helen loved the sight of snow, it was also a cause of 

considerable stress and she spent many winter nights staying up fearing it would damage the statues in the Camel Yard. 









THE LION’S DEN 

The Lion’s Den is an outside room which is not accessible from the house and has to be entered from the garden. Unlike other rooms, which were remodelled and decorated to 

maximise the effect of light after Helen’s parents’ deaths, this room’s window was blocked up and the walls were painted black before being encrusted in glass. In contrast to the 

rest of the house, the defining feature of this room is the absence of light. The words 'The Lion’s Den' are inscribed in the cement steps leading up to the room. 

Helen’s father Piet Martins was banished to this room by Helen and her mother Hester. According to friends and acquaintances interviewed by Susan Imrie Ross, Helen neglected 

Piet after Hester’s death in 1941. Piet, who died four years later in 1945, was described as a difficult man who was hated by Helen. It appears that the period during which she was 

alone with her father was a very dark time in her life. In a surviving tape recorded with her sisters for her nephew at an unknown date after 1945, Helen recounted how she feared 

she had killed her father by administering an overdose of medication. 

According to residents, Piet would send his sheep to the common at night to exceed his allotted quota, took his animals to graze on other people’s land and often got into fights, 

some of which even ended up in court. A very religious man, he was said to write the names of his enemies next to verses he thought applied to their perceived transgressions in a 

thick family Bible. His daughter Annie recalled he had a very negative view on life and even went as far as saying people shouldn’t have children. In an interview with Ross, she said: 

"If a boy is born it is sad, but if it’s a girl, it’s even worse, was his viewpoint." 





BLUEBEARD’S CHAMBER 

Leading from the long room is a storeroom, which Helen kept locked and mysteriously referred to as Bluebeard’s Chamber. When asked why she gave the room this name, she 

reportedly replied: “Because that is where Bluebeard kept his women locked up.” An incomplete face, said to represent Bluebeard, stares from the outside of the door and was being 

drawn at the time of Helen’s death. The image resembles the shadow cast by the suns painted on the windows in various other rooms. 

The most famous version of the story of Bluebeard was written by Charles Perrault in the late 17th century and was retold in Andrew Lang’s Blue Fairytale Book, hugely popular in 

the Victorian Anglo world. It tells the story of a young woman who marries a rich widower, considered very ugly due to his blue beard. He goes away on business, handing over all 

the keys to his newlywed wife and instructing her not to enter a certain closet, which can be opened with a small key. Her curiosity overcomes her and she finds the closet is filled 

with the gory, murdered bodies of all his previous wives. The little key becomes stained with blood she cannot wash off and when Bluebeard returns, her disobedience is discovered 

and he attempts to behead her before her brothers rescue her at the last moment. 

Helen’s choice of name for the storeroom suggests she identified deeply with this fairytale and its themes of male dominance and shameful secrets best kept under lock and key. 

One interpretation of the story is that it can be seen as a metaphor for the punishments meted out to women for breaking men’s rules. Jill Wenman, Helen’s closest friend in later 

life, recalled that she was never shown the inside of Bluebeard’s Chamber or the Lion’s Den. 





THE BACK STOEP 

The backyard, known as the Camel Yard, is accessed through two doors leading on to the back stoep, one from Bluebeard’s 

Chamber and a second from the Green Room. The yard, filled with cement sculptures and bas-reliefs constructed by Helen’s 

helpers under her direction, can be seen as a concrete expression of the world she built in her imagination. 

She drew inspiration from diverse sources, including books, magazines and souvenirs given to her by various friends and family 

members over the years. Helen was particularly moved by Edward Fitzgerald’s version of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and the 

back stoep is dominated by figures inspired by this work. The back stoep also features one of the many references to the Mona 

Lisa throughout the house and yard, a work she appears to have been particularly obsessed with. 

To the left of the door is a crude mosaic 

of a sun which appears to be smiling. 

Beneath this benevolent sun a red-haired 

woman swims upwards. The jealous sun, 

seen from the Green Room, watches out 

over the yard. It is flanked by a mosaic 

owl, made from green, blue and brown 

bottle glass, with outstretched wings. 



OMAR KHAYYAM 

In the early 20th century, Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat was one of the best known books in the Englishspeaking 

world. Until the appearance of this literary phenomenon, Khayyam was primarily known as a mathematician and astronomer. 

He was born in Nishapur (or Neyshabur) in 1048, ten years after the Persian city on the Silk Road was captured by the Turkic Seljuk 

Empire. Fed by underground aqueducts, the city was an important agricultural and cultural hub on the route, at one point even rivalling 

Constantinople in renown. Khayyam was a close associate of Sultan Malik-Shah and the high point of his career was spent in Isfahan 

where he set up an observatory and worked on revising the Persian calendar. 

According to some sources, Khayyam was even a drinking buddy of the sultan. However, in 1092, Malik-Shah died suddenly and the 

Seljuks were plunged into turmoil, leading to Khayyam’s departure from the court. Although little is known of the historical figure, it’s 

believed he may have spent the following years in the city of Merv before returning to Nishapur, where he died in 1131. 

His poetry was largely unknown until Fitzgerald’s translation catapulted to fame and infamy in the late 19th century, largely due to its 

popularity among members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. First published in 1859, the same year as Charles Darwin’s On the Origin 

of Species appeared, it didn’t sell a single copy in the first two years. Its path to becoming a global sensation started in 1861 when 

a friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s picked up a copy for a penny and passed it on to the artist and poet, who distributed it among his 

circle. Among its early admirers was the art critic John Ruskin, who was quoted as saying: “I never did – till this day – read anything 

so glorious.” 

In effect, Fitzgerald was more of a co-author than a translator. The number of rubaiyat, usually free-standing quatrains in the Persian 

tradition, which can definitely be attributed to Khayyam is heavily disputed and some scholars have even argued that the astronomer 

authored none of them. The structure of the work is wholly Fitzgerald’s invention. Traditionally, rubaiyat are ordered according to 

alphabetical rhyme but Fitzgerald created a narrative where quatrains are grouped to follow a symbolic day from dawn to nightfall. 

Over a number of years, Fitzgerald revised his work repeatedly and released five editions containing differing numbers of the stanzas. 



Born to one of the wealthiest families in England in 1809, Fitzgerald was a typical example of a Victorian gentleman of leisure. His wealth enabled him to pursue his interests without 

the worry of having to earn an income. Some of the happiest years of his life were spent as a pupil of King Edward VI Grammar School in Bury St. Edmunds. Interestingly, headmaster 

Dr. Benjamin Heath Malkin was a friend of William Blake’s and Fitzgerald was aware of the poet and artist long before his posthumous rise to fame. 

Fitzgerald, who was often plagued by loneliness, valued friendship most highly and among his friends were poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson and novelist William Makepeace Thackeray. 

Throughout his life, he kept up correspondence with numerous friends and acquaintances. 

Fitzgerald was first introduced to Persian poetry by his friend and Persian tutor Edward Cowell. He became obsessed with Khayyam after Cowell sent him quatrains attributed to the 

Persian he had found in the Ouseley manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Cowell later went to work as a history professor in Calcutta where he discovered more quatrains 

attributed to Khayyam in the Asiatic Society Library. Fitzgerald, a devotee of ancient Roman Epicurean philosopher Lucretius, viewed Khayyam as a kindred spirit and emphasised 

this philosophical bent in the work. 

The work was interpreted by many as a meditation on death and fate and the transience of life, confronting the reader with the reality of mortality and disregarding the consolation 

traditionally offered by religion and faith. The message that only the present is valid comes through particularly strongly in quatrain 12 of the fifth edition, which inspired the cement 

sculpture of two figures pouring out wine on the back veranda of the Owl House, in the line: “A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread – and Thou.” 

Perhaps the work resonated so strongly and widely because it emerged into a world undergoing profound cultural, political and religious changes. It has been observed that in the 

USA, where it was ubiquitous for decades, the poem appeared in the aftermath of the Civil War and the upheavals that followed. The country Helen was born in underwent a similarly 

traumatic event in the form of the South African War from 1899 to 1902. She was born in the Cape, a colony of Britain, and by the time she reached her teenage years, she was a 

citizen of the Union of South Africa. Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat clearly made an impression in South Africa as well with two translations published in Afrikaans, one by CJ Langenhoven 

and another by Herman Charles Bosman. Helen owned a copy of the Langenhoven translation. 

The book’s popularity has been credited to its rejection of religious hypocrisy and bourgeois respectability during a period where moral codes and behaviour were often strictly enforced. 

Recalling his first experience of reading the poem at the age of 14, the modernist poet TS Eliot later wrote: “It was like a sudden conversion; the world appeared anew, painted 

with bright, delicious and painful colours.” In contrast, the conservative writer GK Chesterton condemned the work as the bible of the “carpe diem religion”. 

For many, the Rubaiyat was a celebration of hedonism and it inspired the creation of Omar supper clubs across the USA and Britain where likeminded individuals could meet in 

friendship over wine and food. Among the famous names that were recorded attending club dinners were writers such as Thomas Hardy, JM Barrie, George Meredith, George 

Gissing and Henry James and the publisher Charles Scribner. In Oscar Wilde’s famous novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, the hedonistic Lord Henry Wotton, who seduces the title 

character to sell his soul, refers to “wise Omar”. 



The illustration to rubai number 71 from Fitzgerald’s second edition inspired two separate works in this area. The illustration is of a turbaned man, who resembles a magician, holding 

a flaming torch in one hand and in the other, a spiked orb topped with a five-pointed star nestled in a crescent moon. 

I sent my Soul through the Invisible, 

Some letter of that After-Life to spell: 

And after many days my soul return’d 

And said, Behold, Myself am Heav’n and Hell 

The torch appears to represent hell while the star and crescent, the symbol of Islam, is heaven. However, the message of the rubai suggests that both these concepts are merely 

reflections of human anxieties and are states that emanate from within the human consciousness. This message would have been incredibly liberating to someone brought up 

according to strict Calvinist principles. It would also have been shockingly heretical to many in a small, Afrikaner community at the time. 

The turbaned magician appears in bas-relief on the top of a table and is one of the figures on the frieze. The star and crescent moon at the top of his orb has been constructed 

separately from leaded glass and tin and is attached to the frieze by a wire. This is the star and crescent moon visible from the sitting room through the amber window pane. Viewed 

from the other side of the glass inside the house, it forms part of a totally different visual construct and conjures up associations divorced from the poem. 

To the right of a green, glass-encrusted door opening from the Green Room is a particularly beautiful bas-relief inspired by Sheriffs’ illustration of rubai number 57, showing a pair 

of embracing lovers. It’s flanked by the Mona Lisa on the adjoining wall. 

You know, my Friends, how bravely in my House 

For a new marriage I did make Carouse: 

Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed, 

And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse. 

Rubai number 57 carries an epicurean message, celebrating enjoyment of the senses. This is also in stark contrast to the Calvinistic tendency towards abstinence and moral 

stricture. 







Most of the figures featured in the frieze 

running along the bottom of the main 

stoep wall, cement sculptures, basreliefs 

and a table top were inspired by 

Robert Stewart Sherriffs’ illustrations 

of the poem. According to Jill Wenman, 

this illustrated version was a gift to 

Helen from Don Maclennan, a prominent 

professor, poet and playwright 

associated with Athol Fugard, and the 

frieze was dedicated to him. 





WILLIAM BLAKE 

Three pieces in the yard were inspired by the work of William Blake. Two cement sculptures, a chrysalis baby on an oak leaf and a prophetess resembling a shepherd, are renditions 

of illustrations from Blake’s For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise. A third sculpture is of Adam and Eve and is taken from Blake’s illustration The Temptation and Fall of Eve in an edition 

of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Helen also wrote out the caption accompanying the chrysalis baby on a column above the sculpture, which reads: 

What is Man! 

The Suns Light when he unfolds it 

Depends on the Organ that beholds it 

Blake, who was born in London in 1757 and died in 1827, was a visionary printmaker, artist and poet who mixed images and text to complement each other. The engravings that 

accompanied his poetry were more than illustrations – the one could not exist without the other. In his life, the imagination ruled supreme and was a divine gift. In some ways, he 

resembles an outsider artist as his work was never truly appreciated or understood in his lifetime, only becoming canonical thanks to the advocacy of the Romantic poets of the 

next generation. Prophetically, he stated that his work would only truly be recognised in later ages. 

Blake had an exceptionally visual mind and saw figures of his imagination as if they were flesh and blood. He identified four kinds of vision he experienced, the higher forms of which 

were almost supernatural. The first type was what he called single vision – that which encompasses only the material world, the world of science and rationality. What he called 

two-fold vision was the realm of subjectivity and imagination. Three-fold vision was when he entered a domain he called Beulah, the realm of the subconscious. Blake described it 

as: “There is a place where Contrarieties are equally true. This place is called Beulah. It is a pleasant lovely Shadow, where no dispute can come, because of those who sleep.” The 

highest vision, experienced only rarely, was four-fold. This was the territory where the characters of his own mythological world resided. Here you could find figures such as Urizen 

and Albion, visions of time and space and characters from works such as Paradise Lost, the Bible and Dante’s Divine Comedy. 

It’s interesting that Helen was drawn to Blake’s work as there were notable similarities between their experiences of the world. Blake, in many ways a misfit, found refuge in a world 

crafted from his imagination and artistic creation. It could be argued that in many ways Helen’s conception of the East resembled Blake’s realm of Beulah – taking the form of a 

fairytale world that offered release from an often difficult existence. Although she was not able to create art with her own hands, she clearly had a very rich imagination and made 

use of everything from books to postcards to share her vision with collaborators such as Van der Merwe and Malgas. 



The Gates of Paradise was conceived during a time when Blake experienced intense visions, making it difficult for him to focus on his commercial work. Two versions were released. 

The first, with minimal text foretitled For the Children, was issued in 1793. An 1818 reissue, with the foretitle For the Sexes, added three plates and explanatory verses. The work is in 

the tradition of 17th century emblem books and Protestant literature for children. These works were often very moralistic cautionary tales but Blake subverted the genre with a dark 

depiction of the life of man from the embryo to the grave. 

There are shocking images of a woman pulling mandrake babies from the earth and a bearded figure cutting the wings of a child with the caption: 

As Aged Ignorance he clips the wings of his own joys. 

Blake illustrated Milton’s work more than any other author and was particularly obsessed by Paradise Lost. He made one plate for each of the 12 books of the poem. Milton was also 

the hero of Blake’s own epic poem Milton: A Poem in Two Books, in which the poet returns to earth and enters Blake’s body. One of the two narrative arcs of Paradise Lost follows 

the fall from grace of Adam and Eve. 

The scene Helen recreated depicts the moment Eve is seduced by the serpent and eats the forbidden fruit while Adam has his back turned. In the poem, Adam later eats the fruit 

knowingly as he fears being separated from Eve if she committed the sin alone. The two later receive forgiveness from God but are expelled from paradise and God becomes 

invisible to them. Notably, the biblical theme of forgiveness and redemption was an obsession shared by both Blake and Helen. According to Imrie Ross, Helen marked numerous 

passages in her Bible and most of them were related to healing, redemption, forgiveness and the sacrifice Jesus made for sinners. 

The chrysalis baby is from the frontispiece of the book. It has been interpreted by some as symbolising the possibility of human consciousness. The shepherd-like prophetess Helen 

reproduced as a cement figure is the last emblem in the book. The image is captioned: 

I have said to the Worm: Thou art my mother & my sister. 

This is taken from Job 17:14 in the Bible. The image represents Tirzah, a figure in Blake’s personal mythology who is the creator of the physical body and, therefore, the mother of 

death. 









TEXTURES AND MATERIALS 

Daniël van der Merwe 

Over 12 years, Helen Martins and Piet Malgas transformed her home and garden by 

using found objects and readily available materials. This allowed Helen to project and 

express her quests for meaning and beauty, thereby challenging conventional notions 

of art and aesthetics. 

To any observer, the materiality, texture, and translucency of an art object will have 

an impact on its meaning beyond the mere form. As such, Helen’s personal visions, 

spirituality, and the emotions she wanted to express depended as much on her choice 

of materials as on her artwork. This was to be experienced both in the daytime and at 

night. Her every artistic expression was considered, even the symbolic Queen of the 

Night cacti planted in her garden, which bloom radiant white flowers at night. 



This poetic use of materials can be seen as a reflection of her inner life, her struggle with loneliness and depression, and her quest for meaning and beauty. As such, she applied 

glass in different forms. Glass added colour, light, reflection, and sparkle to her world, contrasting with the village and arid landscape beyond. Glass created fantasy but may even 

suggest a connection with an underlying theme of impermanence and fate. Concrete was used, often mixed with crushed glass and wire armatures for most of the sculptures. It 

gave her sculptures a solid and durable form but also allowed her to shape them into various textures, themes, and motifs. Wire created the skeletons of her sculptures and a base 

for details and embellishments. It also gave them a sense of movement and dynamism and a delicate and intricate appearance. Mirrors and mirror pieces underscore the whimsical 

but also add fantastical reflections, mystery, and depth. Helen cut metal sheets into various symbolic shapes and sizes, such as circles, stars, crescents, and hearts, which she 

attached to her sculptures using wire or nails. Some metal sheets were painted to add colour and contrast and focus interest. 

Helen ultimately used materials and transformed them creatively to manifest her themes. In her hands, materials metamorphosed to enhance her messages through a contrast 

between the old and the new, the fragile and the solid, the transparent and the opaque, light and shadow. She willed them into a personal, magical, four-dimensional world of forms, 

textures, light, and colours. 



This poetic use of materials can be seen as a reflection of her inner life, her struggle with loneliness and depression, and her quest for meaning and beauty. As such, she applied 

glass in different forms. Glass added colour, light, reflection, and sparkle to her world, contrasting with the village and arid landscape beyond. Glass created fantasy but may even 

suggest a connection with an underlying theme of impermanence and fate. Concrete was used, often mixed with crushed glass and wire armatures for most of the sculptures. It 

gave her sculptures a solid and durable form but also allowed her to shape them into various textures, themes, and motifs. Wire created the skeletons of her sculptures and a base 

for details and embellishments. It also gave them a sense of movement and dynamism and a delicate and intricate appearance. Mirrors and mirror pieces underscore the whimsical 

but also add fantastical reflections, mystery, and depth. Helen cut metal sheets into various symbolic shapes and sizes, such as circles, stars, crescents, and hearts, which she 

attached to her sculptures using wire or nails. Some metal sheets were painted to add colour and contrast and focus interest. 

Helen ultimately used materials and transformed them creatively to manifest her themes. In her hands, materials metamorphosed to enhance her messages through a contrast 

between the old and the new, the fragile and the solid, the transparent and the opaque, light and shadow. She willed them into a personal, magical, fourdimensional 

world of forms, textures, light, and colours. 





The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, 

Moves on: nor all the Piety nor Wit 

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, 

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it. 

Omar Khayyám 









THE EAST, PYRAMIDS AND CAMELS 

The Camel Yard, as it was named by Helen herself, is orientated towards 'the East'. However, the large metal sign reading 'East' in 

Afrikaans and English actually indicates the south. When interviewed by Ross, Koos Malgas said Helen had told him she made a big 

mistake because the camels in the yard, many of which are accompanying Biblical wise men, were not walking towards the East. 

Jill Wenman said: "She felt she didn't want the wise men not to arrive at their destination, so she created a destination for them; but 

where they were already marching to wasn't East, so she had to make her own!" 

A large portion of the figures appear to be travelling towards Helen’s East with outstretched, worshipping arms. In the European 

mind of the time, the East often served as a contrast to Western values and culture, which some felt set constricting boundaries. In 

Helen’s mind, the East possibly symbolised an escape from her limiting surroundings to the exotic, exciting and unknown. Wenman 

said that the figure of a woman hurrying towards the East holding the hand of a girl was a birthday present to her from Helen and 

represented the two of them. "She was showing me the East," she told Ross. 

The yard is almost dominated by the dozens of camels that populate it. According to Wenman, Helen’s sister Alida Seymour was 

probably the most important person in her life and many of the places she travelled to, such as Egypt which is often associated 

with camels, inspired her. According to Malgas, Helen had plans to cover all of the camels in brown glass but this never happened 

due to her tragic suicide. 

In popular depictions of the Nativity, the Magi, who followed a star in the East to welcome the newborn Jesus, are often shown 

travelling on camels on their journey of great spiritual significance. As animals that make long desert journeys carrying heavy loads, 

camels are often associated with strength, endurance, wisdom and humility. 

Another indication of her obsession with the East is the dozens of pyramids around the yard. It has been argued that these burial 

places of the ancient pharaohs might have been stairways to heaven and might also have symbolised the rays of the life-giving sun, 

which was at the centre of their religion, spreading to the earth. 

















SUN, MOON AND STARS 

Helen was fascinated by heavenly bodies and her friend Jill Wenman told Susan Imrie Ross that she worshipped the moon. Wenman said they would have tea in the garden at night 

when the huge white scented Queen of the Night cactus flowers came out. She told Ross: “There’s much more of a sense of mystery about the house, and garden, at night. It’s almost 

ghostlike. She used to look out for the moon; a fickle companion that came and went.” 

There are a number of little nude female figures stretching upwards throughout the yard, which are known as the sun worshippers. Koos Malgas told Ross that they were modelled 

after the handle of a small bell in the house, which has since disappeared. 

One of the most startling figures is of a woman contorted into a back-bend, coincidentally known as full camel pose in yoga, which Helen described as a moon worshipper. Wenman 

said when she pointed out that you were supposed to worship facing the other direction at Mecca, Helen said: ‘'That is rather silly, because if you bend the other way you can’t see 

the sun or the other things you’re supposed to be worshipping!" 

An interesting feature of the yard, which also has eastern origins, is the moon gate. These circular gates were first built in the gardens of Chinese nobility to welcome visitors and 

offer good luck. In the late 19th century, they became popular in English and American gardens. Stars are prominently featured in the yard. Most are cut from metal but in Helen’s 

day there were also a number made from Perspex, many of which are no longer to be found. Some of the stars are five-pointed pentagrams while others have eight points. 

The earliest evidence of the existence of a pentagram is from 4000 BCE and it’s believed that it’s derived from the pattern Venus traces in the sky over a period of eight years as 

observed from Earth. The five-pointed star represents Venus in Arabic culture and is often used alongside a waning moon to symbolise Islam. Although Venus is known as both 

the morning and evening star, this configuration indicates the morning star, which is associated with war and action. Both the five and eight-pointed stars were associated with the 

ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, war and fertility Ishtar, also associated with Venus. Helen said she created her own stars for cloudy nights: "You don’t want the wise men 

to lose their way’" 













OWLS AND BIRDS 

Birds, and especially owls, were clearly very important to Helen as they feature throughout the house and yard. Birds often symbolise 

freedom, and perhaps Helen was drawn to them as her own life was constricted materially and socially. 

According to friends and acquaintances, Helen liked to roam around at night, much like the nocturnal owl. In Western culture, the owl 

symbolises wisdom, and in Greek mythology, it is associated with the goddess Athena, and she is often depicted holding the bird. 

However, in many African and Latin American traditions, owls are harbingers of death and to be feared. 

In one of her Bibles, Helen underlined Psalm 102:6, which reads "I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert." 

Numerous peacocks are placed around the yard. These exotic birds, originally from Asia, are another example of Helen’s 

fascination with the East. Peacocks are associated with resurrection, possibly because they regain their magnificent tail feathers 

after moulting. In Christian art, they symbolise immortality and incorruptibility. In certain parts of the world, the cry of the peacock is 

believed to signal the approach of rain. 

One of the most striking bas-reliefs in the yard is of a huge flying, white-painted stork on the south wall of the Lion’s Den. Storks are 

migratory birds, and their arrival signals the approach of spring. In popular culture, they are often shown delivering babies to new 

mothers. They are sometimes associated with new beginnings. 

One of the strangest figures in the yard is the Cock Man, a hybrid of a man and a bird standing with his flies open. When 

interviewed by Ross, Helen’s friend Jill Wenman said it was copied from a cartoon postcard her sister had sent her. 

The postcard read: 

Now he knows the terrible fate, 

Who overcomes all gluttons 

He will reform before it’s too late, 

And do up all his buttons! 







RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY 

In a letter to Imrie Ross, Erika Cloete, wife of the dominee in Nieu-Bethesda, wrote that Helen told her husband 

that she was not an atheist but had no need for formal religion. Cloete also wrote that Helen did not attend 

church services. Helen grew up in a strict Calvinist home where household devotions were a daily ritual. 

The Camdeboo area, which includes Graaff-Reinet and Nieu-Bethesda, was settled by frontiersmen and in 

the 18th century, farmers had to travel 800 km to have their children baptised. Their kinsmen in Cape Town 

and Stellenbosch expressed fears that they were becoming Africanised and this might have established a 

foundational fear in the community. 

As a religious awakening spread across the Cape Colony in the 1790s, the first Dutch Reformed congregation 

in Graaff-Reinet was established in 1792. During this period, being a Christian was a political identity as it 

reinforced a person’s Europeanness in contrast to other races, who were often termed heathens. The town 

of Nieu-Bethesda was founded as a church centre in the late 19th century and the huge Dutch Reformed 

Church is a dominant presence. In Helen’s day, the dominee wielded considerable power and influence, 

enforcing the church’s patriarchal values. 

Although Helen largely rejected the rigid strictures of the community and church, she had a deep interest in 

religion and spirituality. Religious themes are prevalent in the yard, where Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and 

Christianity are referenced. It has been argued that Helen used the Islamic holy site of Mecca as a symbol of 

a spiritual destination or goal. She created structures out of beer bottles, which she called Meccas that were 

big enough for her to physically enter. There are also miniature churches, resembling the town’s massive 

church, dotted around the yard. Many of the other figures and structures have religious connotations, such 

as the shepherds, several nativity scenes and the pyramids, connected to ancient Egyptian religion as the 

tombs of pharaohs and their consorts. 



















MERMAIDS, WOMEN AND WONDROUS CREATURES 

While figures of men are mostly shown in religious contexts, such as wise men, women are depicted in a much wider range of poses and roles. Mirroring the interior of the house, 

the Mona Lisa. features heavily in the yard, depicted in bas-relief multiple times. Helen was clearly very taken with the painting and even sent away for prints from an art gallery. To 

this day, some residents of the town claim she believed she was the reincarnation of the Mona Lisa. 

Some art historians have noted that the painting bears a strong resemblance to Renaissance depictions of the Virgin Mary, who was seen as an ideal of womanhood at the time. 

Perhaps the most startling of Helen’s images of the Mona Lisa. is the bas-relief on a cement water tank, which depicts her with bare breasts. Next to the Mona Lisa. on the water 

tank are two Asian figures and a woman with her hands on her forehead. Koos Malgas told Susan Imrie Ross these were some of the earliest works he made. He said the lady with 

a headache, depicted on a slab of cement leaning against the south wall of the house, was copied from a pill container. 

According to an inscription underneath, one of the figures is 'The Young Lady of South China'. Malgas said the other figure was of what he called a Japanese witch doctor. Written 

underneath this figure is: "O his image a wooden GOD is supposed to possess healing powers. The patient first rubs his afflicted body on the painful spot and then rubs the wooden 

figure in the identified place, which is supposed to effect a cure Outside the Temple at Kyoto JAPAN." 

Among the figures that would have been exotic to Helen are two long-eared busts, which are modelled after figures found on Easter Island. According to Ross, Jill Wenman’s father, 

Stan told Helen about them and sent her images to copy. According to Easter Island tradition, two groups of people once inhabited the island: the long ears and the short ears. 

Legend has it that the short ears grew tired of working for the long ears and exterminated them all in a pyre along a ditch. 

Two male figures that are not shown in a religious context are the Cock Man and a reclining old man in painted overalls, who is offered a beer by one of the Dutch hostesses. This 

section of the yard was reportedly referred to as the debauchery corner. 

Among the fantastical figures are a number of mermaids and female swimmers with webbed feet. Many of them are seated next to small bird baths, which Helen always kept filled 

with water. In an interview with Anne Graaff, Malgas said he was tasked with fetching water from the stream in front of the house every Wednesday in buckets to fill the various bird 

baths. 

One of the more striking of the wondrous creatures is a hybrid of an owl and a camel with a woman standing on its back. The chimera-like creature, entirely of Helen’s invention, 

has the body of a camel and the head of an owl, combining two of the most prominent icons in her world. Interestingly, the chimera of Greek mythology, a fire-breathing combination 

of a lion, a dragon and a goat, is female. On its back stands a nude woman with outstretched arms and eye-catching ruby nipples, one of the few figures to display any sexual 

characteristics. 























MOVEMENT IN MINDSCAPES: OUTSIDER ART IN SOUTH AFRICA 

Wilhelm van Rensburg 

Senior Art Specialist & Head Curator 

Strauss & Co 

Discussions of Outsider Art often focus on descriptive definitions, invoking the origins of the term, and expatiating on the artists’ biographies, invariably stressing their marginalised 

status in relation to the conventions of the Western art canon. The singular distinguishing characteristic of outsider artists is their being untrained, creating their work not necessarily 

for renumeration or for a white cube gallery, but in response to some sort of calling or irrepressible internal motivation or hobbyish personal compulsion. ‘Outsiders’ inevitably 

implies the contrasting notion of ‘Insiders’, that is, artists who have formal training, are feted in gallery and museum exhibitions and on art fairs and biennales, are selected by 

specialist art writers and academics, and whose work is regularly reviewed and critiqued and monographed. 

In South Africa, a handful of outsider artists (Jackson Hlungwani, Noria Mabasa, Esther Mahlangu, Helen Sebidi, and Alfred Thoba, largely due to two seminal exhibitions: Tributaries: 

A View of Contemporary South Africa Art, 1985, and The Neglected Tradition: Towards a New History of South African Art, 1988) circumvented art conventions and are now 

routinely represented in the South African art canon, but what about many other South African outsider artists? What insights to their creative cognition might one detect in their 

art? One such insight is the oscillation between the dynamism and stasis of their subject matter that characterises much of their work. The aim of this article is to traverse these 

two aspects in South African Outsider Art. 

Outsider Art, also known as Art Brut – raw or rough art – a term coined by French artist Jean Dubuffet in 1945, frequently has a ‘disquieting strangeness,’ to use Sigmund Freud’s 

term. It is created by artists who seem to have escaped cultural conditioning and social conformity, challenging the expected formal art educational training and other conventions in 

art. Outsider Art has essentially become an all-encompassing descriptive term that include numerous varieties of unconventional art, such as Folk or Vernacular Art (characterised 

by mainly decorative elements), Intuitive Art (as opposed to, say, intellectual, or ‘rational’ art), Visionary Art (art with a strong spiritual inspiration, such as the well-known ‘retablo’ 

or Votive Painting), ‘Naïve’ Art (often associated with the notion of ‘primitivism’, infantilising the art of first nations – Aboriginal, Native American and San, among others, as well as 

that of children), Spontaneous Art (associated with unmediated psychological expressiveness), and Street/Graffiti Art (seen as work done by supposedly permissive hooligans and 

vandals), with all of these labels inadvertently reinforcing the status of practitioners as ‘untrained amateurs’. A well-known French children’s art magazine, called DADA, in a special 

edition on Outsider Art (No. 93), offers a more apt descriptor: ‘Les Singuliers de l’Art’. 

Despite the previously negative labelling of Outsider Art as reflecting extreme mental states or hallucinatory fantasy worlds, or referencing the artwork done by psychiatric patients, 

hermits and/or spiritualists, Outsider Art has much in common with Modernism. The well-known German Expressionist group, Der Blaue Reiter, embraced child-like forms and 

colours in their art. Dada and its global exponents similarly exhibited a child-like irreverence of societal norms. The CoBrA group of the late-1940s and early-1950s, to which Ernest 

Mancoba, a South African expat, and his Danish wife, Sonja Ferlov, belonged, unashamedly embraced the influence of children’s art. Artists in late-1950s Paris coined such terms 

as Tachisme, Art Informel, or ‘une art autre’ (art of another kind), for art that harnesses the tactility of art material in its various forms. South African artist Christo Coetzee worked 

and exhibited with many of these artists when he lived in Paris in the 50s and 60s. 

Today, much of the preferred material of outsider artists – which, incidentally, has a neat intersection with the Found Object or the Ready Made preferred by Dada artists, as well as 

the so-called ‘intermedia’ of the Fluxus artists of the late-1960s – has become mainstream, and they are now regularly included in publications on contemporary ceramic and clay 

art, as well as contemporary textile art. 





Organically, all these aspects of Outsider Art eventually gave it a distinct dynamic presence in the global art world through the publication of numerous magazines (for example, 

Raw Vision, Out of Art, and Outsider Art News) and monographs (the best-known being on artists Henry Darger, Martín Ramírez, Bill Traylor, and Adolf Wölfli). Authors such as John 

Maizels, Colin Rhodes and Gerard Werkin, among others, have contributed to writing Outsider Art’s histories, and Christina McCollum detailed the growing visibility of Outsider Art 

on the world stage in her 2017 dissertation Exhibitions of Outsider Art Since 1947 (City University of New York). New York has hosted an annual Outsider Art fair since 1993, and 

museums across the world now collect and display the genre, including the Museum of Folk Art (New York), the Metropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art 

(Lille), Collection de l’ Art Brut (Lausanne), the Centre of Intuitive and Outsider Art (Chicago), American Visionary Art Museum (Baltimore), and the Museum of Naïve and Marginal 

Art (Jagodina, Serbia). 

Rigorous academic research is published in Elsewhere: The International Journal of Self-Taught and Outsider Art, edited by Colin Rhodes, put out by the Sydney College of the 

Arts (Australia), and dedicated websites are regularly updated, including Shannon Marie Robinson’s charming Outsider Art: Online Resources for Research. Ironically, publications, 

histories, exhibitions, art fairs, galleries, museums, academic research, and the like were traditionally constitutive elements of the exclusionary western art canon! 

Attempts to bridge the divide, or move marginalised art to the centre, has its own fascinating literature and exhibition history, ranging from the controversial William Rubin and Kirk 

Varnedoe exhibition, ‘Primitivism’ in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern (MOMA, New York 1984), to Jean-Hubert Martin’s Magiciens de la Terre (Paris, 1989), Colin 

Rhodes’ publication Primitivism and Modern Art (Thames & Hudson, 1994) and Catherine Grenier’s Centre Pompidou exhibition, Multiple Modernisms 1905–1970 (2014), which all 

argue for the legitimacy of so-called ‘Ethnographic’ and Outsider Art in mainstream canonical art. 

The historiography of South African art history excludes local Outsider Art completely: no mention is found in Esmé Berman’s encyclopaedic Art and Artists of South Africa (AA 

Balkema,1974), Hans Fransen’s Three Centuries of South African Art (AD Donker, 1982), or the more recent Visual Century: South African Art in Context, edited by Mario Pissarro 

and others (WUP, 2011). Even in terms of contemporary art, Sue Williamson’s South African Art Now (Harper, 2009) and Ashraf Jamal’s In the World: Essays on Contemporary South 

African Art (Skira, 2015) mention no outsider artists. Rather, the lowly status of Outsider Art as marginal is reinforced by such publications as Gavin Younge’s Art of the South African 

Townships (Rizzoli,1988) and only somewhat challenged by Anitra Nettleton’s Engaging Modernities: Transformations of the Commonplace (Wits Art Galleries, 2003). 

The work of local outsider artists agitates for a revisionist approach to the history of South African art more broadly. Nukain Mabuza, Helen Martins, Titus Matiyane, Sibusiso Mbhele, 

Clifford Mpai, John Phalane, Solly Radile/Ratladi (‘Trolley Man’), Wilhelm Saayman and Tito Zungu, are mostly known through tourism brochures, websites, small catalogues, local 

newspaper articles, and a few academic studies, despite having captured the public imagination in Athol Fugard’s The Road to Mecca (stage play, 1985; film,1991) about Martins, 

and his more recent The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek (2015), about Mabuza. Junebug, the 2005 film by Phil Morrison tells a similar story, but about a fictitious American outsider 

artist. 

What is particularly striking about South African outsider artists is the phenomenal sense of movement, latent or overt, in their work. Their driving force or inner compulsion readily 

finds visual expression in intimations of dynamic movement. Performative motion – through the air, on road, or along pathways – is innovatively captured in their work, in contrast to 

the monolithic fantasy structures created by some international outsider artists, including Das Junkerhaus (Germany), Le Musée Robert Tatin and Le Palais Ideal (France), Oiseaux 

Chausse Gros (Canada), Watts Towers (USA), and Nek Chand’s Rock Garden (India). 

Flying through the air (Mbhele, Zungu), moving along city streets (Mpai, Radile) travelling on camel back (Martins), or walking along pathways (Mabuza), South African outsider 

artists are mapping their terrain (Phalane), or panning cityscapes (Matiyane), and enabling the viewer to accompany them on their flights of fancy, by means of fanciful vehicles, 

makeshift airplanes and helicopters, box cars (Saayman), and even shopping trolleys (Radile). 

Nukain Mabuza’s painted rock garden, with delineated ‘rooms’ and ‘routes’ is essentially a manifestation of the cultural, historical, and religious contexts that might have shaped his 

personal vision and contributed to the form his particular expressive environment takes. His inhabited space in the garden is not static; his pathways imply movement, and direction, 

and purpose, demonstrating a unique sense of dynamism in his mind, and which the viewer experiences physically while similarly walking in his world. 

Helen Martins’ Owl House in Nieu-Bethesda, with more than 500 sculptures in the Camel Yard at the back, has legendary status in the global outsider art world. The cement camels 

and their riders are in perpetual motion on the way to the East, following the Star of Bethlehem, in search of a new birth, a new religion. The yard is testimony to Martins’ inner vision, 

the camels and their riders are frozen in time, but in eternal pursuit of a personal spirituality. 





The novelty of Sibusiso Mbhele’s large wire and sheet metal helicopters and aeroplanes, some big enough for him to live in, is best captured in the documentary film by Koto Bolofo 

(2000). While running around with the smaller planes held high above his head, Mbhele inadvertently invokes dreams of new possibilities of living in the world. Despite living in a 

remote rural community, Mbhele dresses in second-hand fighter pilot overalls or commercial airline pilot uniforms, conveying a multifaceted concept of personal identity to the likeminded 

admirers of his movable sculptures. 

Titus Matiyane’s bird’s eye view drawings of cities (to date: Polokwane, Durban, Pretoria, London, New York, Hong Kong and Rotterdam) stretch far and 

wide, from left to right, sometimes up to 15 metres in length, creating vast panoramas and implicating politicised spaces, especially the South African 

cities laid out under apartheid. His ‘eye’ travels in perpetual motion, with the viewer marvelling at the extent of his innovative vision captured in these allencompassing 

cityscapes. 

The novelty of Sibusiso Mbhele’s large wire and sheet metal helicopters and aeroplanes, some big enough for him to live in, is best captured in the 

documentary film by Koto Bolofo (2000). While running around with the smaller planes held high above his head, Mbhele inadvertently invokes dreams 

of new possibilities of living in the world. Despite living in a remote rural community, Mbhele dresses in second-hand fighter pilot overalls or commercial 

airline pilot uniforms, conveying a multifaceted concept of personal identity to the like-minded admirers of his movable sculptures. 

John Phalane also has a bird’s-eye-view of the urban environment, but unlike Matiyane, Phalane views the city from above, vertically, not horizontally from the front. 

Previously a taxi driver in Johannesburg, Phalane has an uncanny memory of the street grids of urban planning. He draws the layout of the streets entirely from 

memory in a phenomenally expressive mindmap. 

Sollie Radile (‘Trolley Man’) collects discarded CDs, DVDs, toys and brightly coloured bric-a-brac that he picks up in the streets for his mobile sculpture, and assembles 

to glittering effect in a typical wire shopping trolley. The fish scale-like covering of the trolley sparkles in the sunlight as Radile rambles through the suburbs, creating 

a startlingly innovative moveable feast of a sculpture. 

The intertextuality of Willie Saayman’s work is a virtual snakes-and-ladders boardgame: he draws on artists and influences as diverse as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Albert 

Oehlen, Dana Schutz, Yoshitomo Nara, and Jockum Nordström. He readily embraces the influence of graffiti and street culture, as well as graphic novels and the tattoo 

images of Gulag reformatory inmates, vividly captured by Danzig Baldaev. 

A recurring motif in his work is the motorcar, bedecked with flags, trailer hooks and mounted machineguns: speed and danger all rolled into a menacing vehicle 

careering through his art. 

Tito Zungu embellishes the covers of envelopes with ballpoint pen drawings of aeroplanes and ships. He remembers as a young boy being fascinated by these 

flying objects and sailing vessels while herding cattle in Stanger on the northern KwaZulu-Natal coast. He believes his letters will be delivered quicker if he affixes an 

aeroplane, ship or train to the envelope. 

The intertextuality of Willie Saayman’s work is a virtual snakes-and-ladders boardgame: he draws on artists and influences as diverse as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Albert Oehlen, 

Dana Schutz, Yoshitomo Nara, and Jockum Nordström. He readily embraces the influence of graffiti and street culture, as well as graphic novels and the tattoo images of Gulag 

reformatory inmates, vividly captured by Danzig Baldaev. A recurring motif in his work is the motorcar, bedecked with flags, trailer hooks and mounted machineguns: speed and 

danger all rolled into a menacing vehicle careering through his art. 

Tito Zungu embellishes the covers of envelopes with ballpoint pen drawings of aeroplanes and ships. He remembers as a young boy being fascinated by these flying objects and 

sailing vessels while herding cattle in Stanger on the northern KwaZulu-Natal coast. He believes his letters will be delivered quicker if he affixes an aeroplane, ship or train to the 

envelope. 

Collectively, South African outsider artists’ work posits a veritable and varied perspective on the land and how its people traversed the terrain in creative and innovative ways. Their 

work, combined, constitutes a dynamic, multi-angled, even conceptually cubist view of art in South Africa. Something more than worthy of being included in the art historical cannon 

of this country. 



GENERAL REFERENCES 

David Maclagan, Outsider Art: From the Margins to the Market Place (Reaktion, 2010). 

John Maizels, Raw Creation: Outsider Art and Beyond (Phaidon, 1996) and Fantasy 

Worlds (Taschen, 1999). 

John Maizels, Fantasy Worlds’ Taschen, 2007). 

Christina McCollum, Exhibitions of Outsider Art Since 1947, unpublished PhD thesis, 

City University of New York (2017). 

Anitra Nettleton (ed), Engaging Modernities: Transformations of the Commonplace 

(Wits Art Galleries, 2003). 

Colin Rhodes, Primitivism and Modern Art (Thames & Hudson, 1994). 

Colin Rhodes, Outsider Art: Spontaneous Alternatives (Thames & Hudson, 2000). 

Shannon Marie Robinson, Outsider art: Online sources for research, online, available 

at https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/9248. 

William Rubin and Kirk Varnedoe, ‘Primitivism’ in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal 

and the Modern (MOMA, New York 1984). 

Charles Russell, Groundwaters: A Century of Art by Self-Taught and Outsider Artists 

(Prestel, 2011). 

Gerard Werkin, Self-Taught Artists of the 20th Century (Chronicle, 1998). 

Gavin Younge, Art of the South African Townships (Rizzoli,1988) 

READING LIST: SOUTH AFRICAN OUTSIDER ARTISTS 

Jill Addleson & Patricia Khoza, Mr Tito Zungu; A Retrospective Exhibition Durban Art 

Gallery (1997). 

Koto Bolofo, Sibusiso Mbhele and his Fish Helicopter, Power House Books (2002). 

John Clarke, The Painted Stone Garden of Nukain Mabuza, Leopardstone Press 

(2013). 

Hazel Cuthbertson, Situating Nukain Mabuza’s Rock Garden: A study of a 

landscape dwelling through multiple explanatory frameworks, unpublished masters 

dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand (2017). 

Annemieke de Kler, Titus Matiyane: Cities of the World, 010 Publishers, Rotterdam 

(2007). 

Anne Emslie, The Owl House, Viking (1991). 

Avril Gardiner, Road to Luxemburg: The Clifford Mpai Story, Liebrecht Gallery (2022). 

Susan Ross, This is my world: The life of Helen Martins, creator of the Owl House, 

Oxford University Press (1997). 

Wilhelm van Rensburg, Wilhelm Saayman: King for a Day, Art on Paper Gallery 2012. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Bloom, H. (2004). Edward Fitzgerald’s The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations, edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom. Chelsea House 

Publishers. 

Byrne, J. (2013). Blake, Joseph Johnson, and 'The Gates of Paradise'. The Wordsworth Circle, 44, 131-136. https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:160210427 

Çelīkkol, A. (2013). Secular Pleasures and FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Victorian Poetry, 51(4), 511-532. Available at: Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/ 

vp.2013.0029. 

Damon, S. (2013). A Blake Dictionary: The Ideas and Symbols of William Blake. Updated Edition. Dartmouth. 

Damrosch, Leo. (2015). Eternity’s Sunrise: The Imaginative World of William Blake. Yale University Press. 

Encyclopedia Britannica. Various articles 

Frankopan, Peter. (2016). The Silk Roads: A New History of the World. Alfred A. Knopf. 

Giliomee, H. (2003). The Afrikaners. Biography of a People. Tafelberg. 

Graaff. A. (2017). The Owl House. Sneeuberg. 

Hardie, W. Searching for Mermaids in the Karoo: A trip on the mythological side of life. AuthorsDen. https://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewArticle.asp?id=41563 (Retrieved 15 

July 2023). 

Higgs, John. (2021). William Blake vs the World. W&N. 

Isani, M. A. (1977). The Vogue of Omar Khayyám in America. Comparative Literature Studies, 14(3), 256-273. Penn State University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40245922 

Jagot, S. (2023). A very short history of One Thousand and One Nights. Shakespeare's Globe. https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/discover/blogs-and-features/2023/01/11/avery-short-history-of-one-thousand-and-one-nights/ 

(Retrieved 5 June 2023). 

Jung, C. G. (1997). Selected Writings. Book-of-the-Month-Club. 

Karlin, D. (Ed.). (2010). Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Translated by Edward FitzGerald. Oxford World's Classics. 

Knipp, C. (1974). The 'Arabian Nights' in England: Galland's Translation and Its Successors. Journal of Arabic Literature, Vol. 5, pp. 44-54 http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182920 

Krznaric, R. (2017). How ‘The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám’ inspired Victorian hedonists. Aeon. Available at: https://aeon.co/ideas/how-the-rubaiyat-of-omar-khayyam-inspiredvictorian-hedonists 

(Accessed: 20 June 2023). 

Macdonald, I. (1964, May 12). "Just a Crazy Mixed up Gonk." Evening Times, Glasgow, p. 12. 

Pastoureau, Michel. (2000). Red: The History of a Color. Princeton University Press. 

Pastoureau, Michel. (2014). Green: The History of a Color. Princeton University Press. 

Pastoureau, Michel. (2019). Yellow: The History of a Color. Princeton University Press. 

Richardson, Robert D. (2016). Nearer the Heart's Desire: Poets of the Rubaiyat: A Dual Biography of Omar Khayyam and Edward FitzGerald. Bloomsbury. 

Ross, S. I. (1996). 'The inner image: an examination of the life of Helen Elizabeth Martins leading to her creation The Owl House and A Camel Yard as Outsider Art'. PhD Thesis, 

Rhodes University. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002227 

Sassoon, D. (2001). 'Mona Lisa: The Best-Known Girl in the Whole Wide World.' History Workshop Journal, 51, 1-18. Published by: Oxford University Press. URL: http://www.jstor. 

org/stable/4289718 

Schafer, E. H. (1985). The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T'ang Exotics. University of California Press. 

Van Der Toorn, K., Becking, B., & Van Der Horst, P. W. (1999). Dictionary Of Deities And Demons In The Bible (2nd Extensively Revised ed.). Brill. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: FOR THE LOVE OF LIGHT: THE OWL HOUSE, A VISUAL JOURNEY 

I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to everyone who played a pivotal role in bringing this project to life. With immense appreciation, I acknowledge every individual who contributed 

their time, expertise, and unwavering dedication to making this book a reality. 

Merwelene van der Merwe, your tireless commitment and countless hours spent working side by side, often through late nights and weekends, have been extraordinary. Your passion 

for this project has shone brightly throughout. 

To Mimi and Susan, your flexibility and enthusiasm, even in the face of format changes, were instrumental in shaping this book into its final form. Your unwavering dedication is 

deeply appreciated. Heinz Bawa, your invaluable assistance in refining the layout of this book, even through multiple iterations, has been indispensable. Your expertise ensured that 

the result was press-ready; I am immensely grateful for that. 

Our esteemed writers, Wilhelm van Rensburg, Daniel van der Merwe, Melvyn Minnaar, Mimi Greyling, and Susan Greyling, your unique perspectives and insightful contributions have 

woven a rich tapestry of text that beautifully complements the visual journey within these pages. A big thank you goes to Athol Fugard for his contribution: his play, The Road to 

Mecca, still opens Helen’s World. 

Albi and Fulvio, your generosity in opening the doors of De Oude Pastorie, your gracious guesthouse, was instrumental in making this project a reality. Your support did not go unnoticed, 

whether it was providing sustenance, assisting with equipment, or braving late nights under the frosty moon for the perfect shot. 

A heartfelt thank you goes out to the dedicated staff at the office of the Owl House: Venique Barendse, Bernadette Barendse, Angela Goliath, Michelle Jacobs, Michaela Jacobs, 

Amanda Snyman, and Charles Graham for accommodating our unconventional requests and helping us in various ways to capture the essence of this project. Kim Shaw and Hazel 

Cuthbertson – having your eagle eyes on the book has been invaluable. 

I extend my deepest gratitude to my husband, who has stood by me throughout the creative chaos and accepted my idiosyncrasies with unwavering support. 

Lastly, I want to thank the Owl House Foundation for entrusting me with this project. May the countless little crystals of glass that Helen so lovingly adorned reflect a sliver of Light 

to all who have been a part of this remarkable journey. 

With warm regards and appreciation, 




In For the Love of Light: The Owl House, A Visual Journey, Elzilda Becker, and Merwelene van der Merwe combine their multiaward-winning 

publishing and photographic expertise to present the home of Helen Martins in an exquisite new series of 

images. 

Helen Martins is recognised internationally as the Nieu-Bethesda artist who filled her home and surroundings with colour, 

light, and hundreds of mythical sculptures. Helen’s unique vision has drawn thousands of people to this village at the foot 

of the majestic Sneeuberg in the Eastern Cape. 

As editor and art director of For the Love of Light, Elzilda immersed herself in Helen’s home and environment, sharing her 

love of light and recognising the need to create. For the Love of Light offers a beautifully presented collection of photographs 

that transport the reader to the village of Nieu-Bethesda, where they can also be part of Helen’s world. 

Over the course of a year, multi-award-winning photographer Merwelene joined Elzilda to capture the essence of Helen’s 

world as it changed with the seasons to offer a new perspective on the artist’s home and lifestyle. 

For the Love of Light: The Owl House, A Visual Journey is a doorway into the world of Helen Martins and her incredible 

imagination. 


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