Gail van Lingen

Battlefields of South Africa

Published: Times Media/Jonathan Ball, Johannesburg, 1991

Coffee Table Book

Paintings by Gail van Lingen. Accounts of the battles by George Chadwick, George Duxbury, John Laband, Pamela McFadden, Jeffrey Mathews, Gilbert Torlage. 144p, 17 maps, sketches and engravings, coloured map as frontispiece, 19 colour plates, many black & white illustrations from old photographs.

A splendid production which chronicles the major battles of South Africa, with fine paintings by van Lingen.

Gail is a South African based artist who has made a name for herself in Cape Town and Johannesburg, and is currently living in KZN.

She studied a B.A. in Fine Arts, University of the Witwatersrand from 1964 to 1967. Between 1987 and 1991 Gail embarked on a project to paint the Battlefields of South Africa. The project immersed her in intensive historical research and set her traveling the length and breadth of the country, to archives and museums, and to camping battlefields themselves. Recognising the historical value of the paintings, Times Media Limited contracted to buy the series of 20 works for their offices. Her works were later published in the book, Battlefields of South Africa.

Born in Johannesburg, Gail van Lingen is a passionate artist with deep roots in South Africa. Her robust and joyous use of colour, along with the texture she achieves with her palette knife, has made Gail van Lingens works eminently collectable. Her unique use of paint, the thick strokes makes her pieces come alive under the light and really captures the essence of the subject matter. Her recent Moroccan Collection was virtually sold out on preview at the old Castle in Cape Town.

Her paintings hang on the walls of discerning art buyers in America, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia and South Africa 

• Dimensions: 43 cm x 30 cm x 1.5 cm
• Weight: 1.8kgs