Andre Salzmann

I was born 22/06/52. Achieved a B.A. Soc. Science at Unv. of Stellenbosch. My ancestors

were almost all artists and/or musicians. My father was one of the best earlier oil painters 

in South Africa, who absolutely disliked selling his art. My sister makes a living as a

musician. All five my children are artistic. One is now completing her PhD. in Fine Art. Two

of the children graduated as top Architects. My eldest grand daughter is the top art student

in her art class. I am hoping and praying that she becomes an oil painter. The story in my

family is that we are the illegitamate decsendants of Kaiser Wilhelm and Eliza Radziville. I

am now doing a DNA test to access the validity of this story. If true, the artistic trait will

probably be explained by  us being the bloodline of Eliza Radziwill, she apparently was a

good artist. This is going to be very interesting as I am already of the 6th generation. 

 

I am a totally self taught oil painter. Although my father painted well, I never had the

opporunity to learn from him, only that " The shadows must come in first". I studied the

American oil painters from round 15/19 years ago by buying the American Artist in those

days and later by aqciring books on David Leffel and other such quality painters. Lately my

approach to painting has been very much influenced by Ivan Schiskin and Clyde Aspevic. I

have an inherent need to be able to place myself, with "landscapes", between those two. I

somehow or other also assotiate the rythms in landscape works with classical music. I have

however not thought all of this out completely, from a psychological point of veiw. I have

come to suspect that the actual parallels are more on the level of the mind than the brain. 

I am however, not a real landscape painter. I see myself as a naturalistic, realistic, veld

painter.  I need veiwers to be able to identify the botany in the paintings. I only paint

actual scenes. I by necessity have to do most of the painting in my studio and have to

employ photography. I love painting outside but in South Africa that is dangerous today,

unless you are in a nature reserve. I am fortunate in that my busiess entails lots of 

traveling, which is mostly then planned to coinside with early morning or late afternoons

at nature scenes that have attracted my interest. One just has to work at overcoming the 

problems photography creates. I attempt to portray lanscapes as close as possible to 

reality and employ mostly the compositions nature has created herself. In spite of regular

experimenting, I suspect that I have allready developed, to some extent, my own 

approach to processing a painting. I am noticing that I employ certain techniques in the

different themes I like painting. What I have realized of late, is that conceptualizing/

interpreting a scene, before "jumping" in, is of the utmost importance to the quality of

the end result. 

I am a totally selfish, obsesive, compulsive painter and it seems I am totally incapable of

not approaching every painting as a new experiment. This might have put my children off 

becoming oil painters as it has interfered seriously with our family life. I run a complicated

business as well, designing and manufacturing furniture and creating all types of patents.

I also trade seriously in South African Old Masters. This implies that I work 12 hours a day,

almost 7 days a week with painting included. They are done early mornings and week ends.

I am hoping to become a full time painter very soon.

 

* This statement has been provided directly by the artist in association to their 14^th International ARC Salon entries. This content has not been edited for typos or grammatical errors and has not been vetted for accuracy.