Sculpture provides an unexpected connection between two cities, writes Clive Chipkin
Both Vancouver and Johannesburg began as late-19th century urban settlements that rapidly grew into sophisticated world cities. Both were founded in 1886 and both celebrated their golden jubilees in 1936 with an exchange of greetings between sister cities of the empire. This resulted in what was commonly believed to be “the tallest flag mast in the world” turned from a single log of British Colombian pine being raised in Johannesburg’s central Joubert park. Like so many other links with the past it has now disappeared; cut up and removed into some demolisher’s yard for resale or more likely consumed as firewood.
Vancouver’s white cuboid City Hall (1936) and the similarly cuboid pavilions at the Johannesburg Empire Exhibition (1936) shared a prevailing vision of modernity derived, no doubt, from a common modern source at the Paris exposition of 1925.
Both were part of a partly Anglophone world with archetypal Edwardian upper-class suburbs on higher ground Shaughnessy Heights (1907) in Vancouver; Parktown established in Johannesburg in 1892.
But most unexpectedly Vancouver and Johannesburg share a major figure, who contributed to their stock of public sculpture. The reason is that both were expanding empire cities offering modest expectations for an emigrant beaux arts-trained sculptor to find commissions. Such a person, presumably, was the sculptor who chiselled his name into one of the end blocks of a pair of allegorical figures carved above the corner entrance of the Standard Bank Chambers (1906-1908), Johannesburg. The inscription once read: C Marega sculpt.
The figures represent industry and agriculture (alternatively interpreted as justice and commerce) separated by an art nouveau armorial shield. The architects were Stucke & Bannister and there was a thematic art llnouveau sub-theme in Stucke’s work at this time. In Marega the architects had discovered the artistry of a knowledgeable and accomplished sculptor of distinction who was familiar with art noveau detailing.
Marega, who left his thumb-prints and chisel marks on at least one major Johannesburg building was born in Trieste in 1871 (some records say 1875). The information available is scanty and sometimes contradictory but it appears that he studied in Vienna and Zurich, which is totally plausible as his work possesses metropolitan flair and a firm grasp of civic classicism. He and his wife arrived in South Africa in time to share in Johannesburg’s post-bellum building bloom. There are reports that he worked with Anton van Wouw and that he stayed in Johannesburg until he departed for Vancouver in 1909. This is consistent with the evidence as Van Wouw moved from Pretoria to Johannesburg in 1908 and they may have met at his studio in Doornfontein.
In Vancouver Marega began transforming himself into a Canadian citizen, changing his name from Carlo to Charles and it is as Charles Marega that he is remembered there. There is a sense of real tragedy in the scarce biographical details available, caused by the meagre opportunities and precarious existence that came to a man of real talent in what were essentially colonial centres ruled by parsimonious patrons.
Marega’s oeuvre in Vancouver over three decades has left the city some important examples of civic sculpture. There is a conventionally heroic bronze of Captain George Vancouver raised on a pedestal in front of the City Hall and there is the impressive south portal to the Lion’s Gate suspension bridge, the First Narrows bridge in North Vancouver. A surviving letter from Marega dated August 1938 (and quoted in the BC Historical News of June 1975) provides some background to this work.
“Thank god I have work now. I am modelling a lion for Vancouver’s suspension bridge. I would have preferred the lions to be in bronze or stone but it had to be cheap, so they will be done in concrete.”
The highly stylised lions with simplified surfaces characteristic of concrete casting have a powerful presence, which an architectural guide to Vancouver describes as “sphinx-like concrete lions on fluted, modern podiums”. The authors regard the work as disquieting.
Marega has clearly moved from the art nouveau context of his early work in Johannesburg to art deco stylisation, projecting an image of imperial hubris. The lions were placed in position in January 1939 in time for the royal visit to Canada in May 1939, an event commemorated in an adjacent plaque and remembered as well in the numerous Canadian building names in President Street, Johannesburg, dating from this period.
Barely more than a month earlier Marega completed teaching his class when he collapsed and died at the art school where he had been employed on a part-time basis since 1925. Thus ended a living link between Edwardian Johannesburg and post-Edwardian Vancouver. But a permanent sculptural legacy maintains this unexpected connection between two distant world cities.