Standing on the stairs of the magistrate’s court in downtown Jo’burg, Julian Gous points across the road to a spot where a red VW is parked. “There’s where the second bomb went off.”
That was 24 years ago, on May 20 in 1987, during Gous’s first stint at the court doing routine restoration on the Pierneef murals that decorate the interior of the building, going up the flights of stairs leading to the administrative concourse.
Former Umkhonto weSizwe commander Joseph Koetle placed two bombs outside the court, the first hidden in a rubbish bin to act as a decoy and the second a car bomb designed to kill as many policemen as possible. Gous says the entire arched window facing the murals on Miriam Makaba (then Bezuidenhout) Street was shattered by the force of the blast, showering him with glass.
Times have changed and there is an urgency to this second restoration as at least one of the Pierneefs is in a state of serious disrepair. The surface of the paintings has been bleached by caustic material in rainwater that came through a hole in the roof where a tile was displaced during repairs. It is ironic that the toxic waste of gold mining has scarred these majestic murals, as if the prosperity of the city itself caused the decay of pictorial representations of its economic beginnings.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do this kind of work and I get to do it twice,” Gous says.
Having trained for seven years as an apprentice at the King George VI Art Gallery in Port Elizabeth (now the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum), under director Clayton Holiday, Gous was then awarded a British Council scholarship to further his studies in the United Kingdom. He worked at the Birmingham City Museum and did a stint in the restoration department of the National Gallery in London.
Picturing the past
The Pierneef murals are not the only artworks Gous will restore. On the opposite stairwell across the passage from the gigantic murals are two huge works by Colin Gill, also done in 1940 at the same time as the Pierneefs, which depict two scenes of early justice. The one on the right-hand stairwell that leads to the Ntemi Piliso Street entrance depicts Captain Carl von Brandis, the town’s first magistrate, settling a diggers’ dispute from horseback.
On the other side of the staircase is an unfinished work (owing to the artist’s untimely death), sketched out in charcoal, of Louis Trichardt handing down a judgment on Christmas Day in 1837. These two depictions of justice give a context to the Pierneefs.
There is a view of Jo’burg as a small mining town in 1886, but the opposite panel shows the rapid rate of the city’s expansion of the next 50 years — a bustling metropolis full of life. It differs from Pierneef’s normal oeuvre in that it features the everyday life of the city’s comings and goings. But the splendour of his landscapes remains. “I have seen those clouds,” says Gous fondly, referring to the plenitude of the Highveld sky over the plains.
Speaking about restoration, Gous says it is generally reversible. After cleaning off the years of dust and caustic build-up in the rainwater — and the date stamps of clerks eager to leave their mark and litter at the bottom of the paintings — he will apply a synthetic resin varnish that will protect the surface of the works from further damage. On this he will then painstakingly colour-match the damaged areas before applying another layer of protective varnish. In the future these layers could be removed, exposing the original painting.
What makes this restoration process easier is that the murals are painted on canvas, which has been glued to the walls. The size of these murals is staggering — four meters by three — and Gous has to work from scaffolding perched on the staircases. If the murals had been painted directly on to the plaster they might also have been damaged by flaking.
The bigger picture
This year-long process also brings into focus the need identified by the department of public works to protect these valuable public artworks, which are regarded as a national Âheritage site.
Five other parties applied for the restoration tender in January and Gous began work in September. He will work on six murals altogether, which include a surreal-looking work painted by Le Roux Smith le Roux, called Justice in Industry, and another by Yolande Friend, titled Trial by Witchcraft, which Gous says is something of a mystery — there is very little information in the archives about the artist.
Gous will restore the frames, which have been painted white, and protect the tops and bottoms of the works with Perspex to prevent them from future damage — from the excrement of birds, which find their way into the building, and the date stamps of clerks.