Iziko South African National Gallery

The Iziko South African National Gallery is the national art gallery of South Africa. Its collection consists of Dutch, French, and British works from the 17th to the 19th century, including lithographs, etchings, and some early 20th-century British paintings.

Contemporary artwork displayed in the gallery is selected from many of South Africa’s communities plus a large collection of sculpture and beadwork.

Virtual Tour of the Iziko South African National Gallery

“Firetail with his Trainer by the Rubbing-Down House on Newmarket Heath” by George Stubbs
“Cape Town from the Top of Kloof Street” by Heinrich Hermann
“City Hall, Cape Town 1917” by Robert Gwelo Goodman
“Rhodes Memorial” by Pieter Wenning

Highlights Tour of the Iziko South African National Gallery

“Firetail with his Trainer by the Rubbing-Down House on Newmarket Heath” by George Stubbs

“Firetail with his Trainer by the Rubbing-Down House on Newmarket Heath” by George Stubbs shows the horse Firetail with rippling muscles at the hight of his career in 1773.

The élite in Britain in the 18th century were horse racing fanatics, and there was a growing demand for a victorious horse to have their portraits painted by George Stubbs.

Stubbs was successful in capturing the individuality of the animals, a skill he developed by his extensive study of horses and their anatomy.

This painting’s focus is on the famous racehorse. The background is composed of an expanse of sky and the Rubbing-Down House on Newmarket Heath.

The trainer is not shown with any distinctive personality; the racehorse has absorbed all of Stubbs’s skills and attention. Firetail could be easily identified with its white dash down its nose and another on its right back leg.

“Cape Town from the Top of Kloof Street” by Heinrich Hermann

“Cape Town from the top of Kloof Street” by Heinrich Hermann was painted over 100 years ago when the church spires were the highest structures that could be seen in the Cape Town skyline.

The view from the top of Kloof Street is looking northeast across the center of Cape Town and down into Table Bay.

The word Kloof means ‘gorge’ in Afrikaans, so the street most probably was named after the vicinity’s deep ravine.

Today Kloof Street in Cape Town is full of bursting with restaurants, bars, clothing boutiques, and stores.

The skyline of Cape Town is now dominated by high-rise office and apartment towers and is over a century into the future from this early colonial water painting view.

“City Hall, Cape Town 1917” by Robert Gwelo Goodman

“City Hall, Cape Town 1917” by Robert Gwelo Goodman shows the sizeable Edwardian building built in 1905 in the city center of Cape Town as the Town Hall for what was at the biggest city in Sout Africa.

It is located on the Grand Parade and is built from honey-colored oolitic limestone imported from Bath in England.

In 1990, only hours after his release from prison, Nelson Mandela made his first public speech after his release from the balcony of Cape Town City Hall.

The City Hall no longer houses the offices of the City of Cape Town but has become a central venue for creative and cultural events.

“Rhodes Memorial” by Pieter Wenning

“Rhodes Memorial” by Pieter Wenning shows the Rhodes Memorial on Devil’s Peak in Cape Town, South Africa, which is a memorial to the South African politician Cecil John Rhodes (1853–1902).

The artist, Wenning was a South African painter considered to be the progenitor of the style of Cape Impressionism. Wenning excelled at the quiescent landscape, nature at rest.

The memorial is situated at one of Rhodes’s favorite spots on the slopes of Devil’s Peak.

The magnificent view may have stirred Rhodes’s vision to champion the Cape to Cairo road, which was Rhodes’s grand imperial dream of a British colonial Africa for which Rhodes was its greatest champions.

Rhodes owned vast areas of the lower slopes of Table Mountain, most of which he gave to the nation on his death.

Part of his estate was used for the University of Cape Town upper campus, part of it is now the Botanical Gardens.