PORTRAIT OF A FAMILY
Deon and Liz Loubser’s Joburg home is as much a warm family space as it is a showcase of beautiful South African art and craft
The Loubsers have been collecting art since they were first married and Liz was studying jewellery design. “Back then we’d barter our work for art. Or pay pieces off over time,” she says
T HERE are those of us who could hang our entire art collection in one smallish room. Or perhaps we are sufficiently interested in the topic that we might attend the odd exhibition opening or chat convincingly on the subject at a dinner party.
Deon and Liz Loubser, on the other hand, exist on a stratospherically different tier of fine-art appreciation. What sets them apart, you ask? Perhaps it’s the wall-to-wall collection of South African classic and contemporary art that fills their home, or the fact that they count some of the country’s most significant artists and craftspeople as friends and contemporaries.
Then again, it might just be that they have recently built and opened their own art gallery. Whichever way you look at it, there’s no point in denying that the Loubsers take a love of art to another level.
Not that theirs is some pretentious, academic approach to this world, mind you.
Wander through the rooms and passages of their home, as I did with Liz recently one late-winter morning while she cradled her sleeping grandson (who was visiting for the day) and you’ll soon realise that the pieces on display in this space tell the story of the couple, their family and lives together.
“That’s the first artwork I ever bought,” says Liz, pointing to a tiny inlaid mosaic still life. “It cost R45 and came from my first overseas trip – to Florence. And that’s a Geraldine Fenn,” she says with a smile, motioning towards a sculpture by her daughter-in-law.
Fenn’s piece sits alongside works by the likes of South African masters Maggie Laubser and JH Pierneef, modernist icons Alexis Preller and Cecil Skotnes, and contemporary stars William Kentridge and Conrad Botes.
The living room boasts two exquisite Robert Hodgins pieces. “His work really does it for me,” Liz observes when, over coffee and rusks later, I ask her if she could name a favourite South African artist. “And Willem Boshoff, of course,” she adds.
The couple has been collecting art since they were first married and Liz was studying jewellery design at Stellenbosch University. “Back then we’d barter our work for art, or pay pieces off over time. Paul Emsley was one of our lecturers and I could kick myself for not nabbing any of his stuff,” she says.
Today Liz is one of South Africa’s most acclaimed contemporary jewellers – with an impressive working studio, jewellery school and gallery to boot.
Of the latter she says: “We didn’t want it to be ostentatious and showy. It’s a place where anyone can visit and see something unusual, whether jewellery or art. We need more patrons of contemporary jewellery in South Africa and it’s our job to make that happen.”
As with her art and line of work, Liz is creative but practical about her home. Deon shares a similar approach. They have lived in their house for more than 20 years and raised two sons here. “They shared the same bedroom until they were in matric,” she says of Eric and Fanie. “It’s just a two-bedroom home but we love it.”
The couple doesn’t have a particular decorating style, says Liz. “It’s eclectic, if anything – we’ve bought stuff over the years that we really like and, somehow, it’s worked.”
Mostly, their art and furniture form a canvas against which everyday life is played out. For evenings spent watching TV and reading magazines, or seriously long family lunches, enjoying killer ribs and lots of exceptionally good wine. What more could you ask for, really? • Liz Loubser Gallery, lizloubser.com