THE Heritage Foundation has received the first painting of the inauguration of the Voortrekker Monument which took place on December 16, 1949.
Erich R Schulz completed the painting in 1949, and on the day he would have turned 107 at the end of June, his daughter Ingeborg Schulz donated it to the Voortrekker Monument’s museum collection.
The painting depicts a man and a woman staring at the Voortrekker Monument on the day of the inauguration.
Schulz said her father owned a bakery in Sunnyside and painted several works of art. He was also very fond of the monument and Afrikaner history.
Asked why she donated the painting to the monument’s museum collection, Schulz said: “What else is going to become of it? My father loved the monument, and he would have liked it if it were preserved here.
“He would have turned 107, so it is a very special day to donate it to the museum,” Schulz said.
Petra Luus, the museum curator, added that they regularly received several requests to donate photographs and programmes of the inauguration day, but this was the first painting a private person had donated.
“It shows you what value art offers to history. In the museum collection, there are some famous artists like W H Coetzer’s paintings, and now we are also the proud custodians of a painting from someone like Erich Schulz.
“We can not thank the family enough, to trust us to look after the cultural treasure,” Luus said.
The museum collection is not open to the public, but exhibitions are arranged where some of the works are exhibited.
Appointments can also be made on special requests if people want to view the collection.