Pretoria Art Museum - a poignant collection of local art

TThe Pretoria Art Museum was established to house the City Council's growing art collection, which had been built up since the early 1930s. Its current building was constructed in the early 1960s.

From the start, this Pretoria museum took a strategic decision to concentrate on establishing a representative collection of local art, and today, its permanent collection represents a comprehensive historical record of South African art.

Highlights from the gallery's permanent collection include several works by Walter Battiss, township street scenes by Gerard Sekoto and one of the biggest collections of Henk Pierneef's work, including paintings, drawings and graphic work such as woodcuts, linocuts and etchings. Among these are 18 paintings of early Pretoria that are an important part of the collection.

TThe Pretoria Art Museum also has a number of post-impressionist and expressionist works by Maggie Laubscher and Irma Stern.

Today, the Pretoria Art Museum focuses on collecting urban and rural art that includes paintings, sculpture, graphics, tapestries, photographic prints and ceramics. It has several exhibition halls that host concurrent exhibitions from the permanent collection, as well as temporary local and international exhibitions.