Pieter Willem Frederik Wenning (1873-1921)

A native of The Hague and the son of an art teacher in Leeuwarden, Wenning was sent out to South Africa in 1905 by his employer, a bookseller in Amsterdam, Wenning only began painting seriously in 1916-17, after D.C. Boonzaier spotted his work and raised enough funds to take him away from his clerk's job in a Pretoria bookshop and support a full-time career. He moved down to the Cape in the winter of 1916, renting a studio in Newlands near his friend Boonzaier. He spent the rest of his life painting, primarily in the Cape, until his untimely death just six years later.