A self-portrait.

e was an artist of many parts, most of them hidden from his legion of friends and fans. At his funeral, grande dame bridge players joined proud children of farm workers whose lives he had saved with his knowledge of herbs, fussing NGO officers who drove across the country to be at his exhibitions rubbed shoulders with Harare’s artistic community who supported him.
Wisely, Kirkman lets van der Spuy tell his own story through his quirky, perceptive letters to his friends. They are beautifully written – if the man wasn’t such a fine painter he could easily have earned a better living with a pen – and I suspect expertly edited.
His was an artist’s eye – a visit to a slaughter house in Ethiopia evokes not nausea but ‘a vast mountain of bleached bones – the ones closest to the slaughter house tinged with red – those further away like white rags. The vultures huddled in rows on this red corrugated iron roof.’ And on his art: ‘Anyone who thinks that representing the world we see consists of merely copying what is out there has got it wrong. You don’t represent reality, you symbolise it.’
South African by birth and Zimbabwean by choice, his art was central to his life. Kirkman’s book shows those of us who knew him slightly just how hard he worked to produce distillations of his life on paper, beautifully captured in watercolours, acknowledged to be the most difficult medium for a painter. He uses them with brio, producing vibrant colours and enchanting compositions that astound and delight his audiences.
Martin’s other great gift was as a friend. He was always original, his knowledge, of music, literature and art was encyclopaedic and he was a brilliant cook. Not that there was often anything to eat in his series of simple homes – herbs from the garden whipped up into an omelette you never forgot, his generosity in slicing up the still life he was working on so that his visitor could share a meal with him.
Kirkman brings the whole man to us with style and sensitivity. Like the man, the book is a cornucopia of good things – how to be an artist, how to survive criticism, how to be a good friend and how to survive on nothing when your paintings don’t sell.
She has reproduced the full range of his paintings and drawings in the book, mixing black and white with colour reproduction to good effect and consequently keeping down the cost. It is a book for people who, like Martin, look beyond the politics and economics to celebrate the glories of Zimbabwe, for lovers of fine art and for anyone who has ever wondered if it is possible to survive if you strike out to live your dream. – A Gathered Radiance, drawn from the life of Martin van der Spuy by Penelope Kirkman. Published by Penelope Kirkman, available from Prestige Books at the National Art Gallery or through Barbie Keene – bubble@zol.co.zw.