Frieda Lock 1902-1962

Known for her unconventional life and the vibrancy of her oil paintings, Frieda Lock started and ended her peripatetic existence in England, while the true impact of her fresh and forward-looking art was mostly on South African soil. Lock was a vital member of the bohemian jet-set contingent in early 20th Century Cape Town, and the 'New Group' that she founded in 1938 with artists such as Terence McCaw, Gregoire Boonzaier, Lippy Lipschitz would prove seminal in the development of South African art. During her life, Lock's colourful and flamboyant interior scenes, still lifes, landscapes and figure studies were shown at the Tate Gallery in 1948 in an exhibition of South African Art; her work was also represented by various public institutions such as the South African National Gallery in Cape Town, University of South Africa among others. In his essay Lessons of History, Bernhard Herzberg recalls "there is one painting of hers, showing a merry-go-round which, to my mind, more than anything else, epitomises the forever-turning carousel of the decades we shared with her."