Owl House

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Owl on the outside facade

The Owl House is a museum in Nieu-Bethesda , Eastern Cape Province , South Africa . The former owner Helen Elizabeth Martins (* December 23, 1897 in Nieu-Bethesda; † August 8, 1976 in Graaff-Reinet ) designed her house and its surroundings into a total work of art that houses more than 300 of her statues, including owls, camels, Pyramids, peacocks and people. She achieved great fame in South Africa as an artist of Art brut .

Helen Martins

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Helen Elizabeth Martins was born in Nieu-Bethesda in late 1897. She was the youngest of ten children, four of whom died in childhood. Her parents were Pieter Jakobus Martins and Hester Catharina Cornelia van der Merwe. They ran a small farm and supplied the village with milk. Helen attended the local school and in 1918 earned a teaching diploma at the teachers' college in Graaf-Reinet . For the next two years she taught in Wakkerstroom and married her colleague Willem Johannes Pienaar on January 7, 1920. The marriage ended in divorce after two years. Nothing certain is known about the following years. Before her 30th birthday, Helen returned to her parents' house to take care of her ailing mother. After her death in 1941, she lived with her eccentric and demanding father, but went her own way. In 1945, when she was almost 50 years old, her father died.

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Left to her own devices, she began to remodel her inherited home. Fascinated by the subject of "light", she began to change the interior according to her ideas with reflective colored glass, mirrors and lamps as well as small clay sculptures. Large groups of sculptures followed in the outdoor area. This project increasingly determined her life and also consumed her meager financial resources, although she built used or discarded things and materials such as glass bottles. Still, she had to buy cement and wire to build her sculptures, paints and adhesives for her glasswork and custom-made mirrors. The biggest cost factor, however, was the wages of the unskilled workers they employed to implement their ideas. She only took care of the laborious crushing of the glass herself.

She felt misunderstood as a target of unjustified gossip and gossip in the neighborhood and over time withdrew more and more into her fantastic world, shunned by the community and rejected because of her eccentricity. At the age of about 60 she was briefly married for three months to J. J. M. Nobody, a local pensioner and furniture restorer. From 1964 she employed Koos Malgas, a traveling sheep shearer, who helped her build her cement and glass sculptures. He lived at Owl House for the next twelve years and was her only friend and companion until her death. Although she had increasing health problems, suffered from depression and began to go blind from the glass dust to which she had been exposed for decades, she worked until her death. In August 1976, at the age of 78, she ingested sodium hydroxide and died three days later in Graaf-Reinet Hospital. Koos Malgas, who had created most of the sculptures in collaboration with Martins, moved to Worcester two years later , but returned in 1991 as the restorer of Owl House. He died in November 2000.

Owl House

After Martin's death, the house began to go into disrepair. The Friends of the Owl House campaigned for the maintenance, and the Nieu-Bethesda City Council purchased the house from Martin's nephew Herbert Martins. In 1989 the house was granted temporary status as a National Monument . From January 1991 Koos Malgas was entrusted with the restoration of the "Camel Yards". The "Owl House Foundation", founded in 1996, took over the cultural and tourist maintenance. The house is open to the public as a museum and is a national tourist attraction.

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The interior of the Owl House is shaped by Martin's preoccupation with light and reflections. Between 1945 and 1976 she experimented with different materials to bring light and color into the house. The walls and ceilings are plastered with crushed glass in different colors that glitters when the light falls. Martins used it to create artistic patterns that are embedded in ribbons of light color. Candles, lamps, windows with colored glass and mirrors create additional effects. Martins had the mirrors made in the shape of the sun, moon and stars. There are also a large number of objects and images that had a symbolic meaning for them, such as owls, mermaids and the Mona Lisa .

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On two sides of the house there is a half- acre sculpture garden, the so-called “Camel Yard” by Martin, in which motifs from inside the house, especially owls and mermaids, are taken up. Martin's inspiration came from both Christian and Eastern cultures and is shaped by motifs from the Bible , William Blake's work, and Omar Chayyam's writings. In addition to mythical creatures, churches, pyramids and human figures, there are the representations of owls and camels preferred by Helen Martins. A large room is occupied by a procession of shepherds and wise men facing Mecca .

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Literature / film

  • Miss Helen's Magical World . Children's book in which Martin’s life is told in a child-friendly manner. Illustration: Wendy Morison, text: Jacqui L'Ange, design: Nadene Krielwith. Book Dash, Cape Town 2014, ISBN 9780-9946519-4-5
  • Julia Malgas, Jeni Couzyn: Koos Malgas: Sculptor of the Owl House . Nieu Bethesda 2008, Firelizard, ISBN 978-09535058-2-1
  • Philip Harrison: South Africa's Top Sites: Arts and Culture . Spearhead, Kenilworth 2005, ISBN 978-08648656-5-6 , p. 50
  • Sue Imrie Ross, Helen Elizabeth Martins: This is My World. The Life of Helen Martins, Creator of the Owl House . Illustrated biography, Oxford University Press 1997, ISBN 9780-1957151-6-3
  • Anne Emslie: A Journey Through the Owl House . Penguin Group 1997, ISBN 978-0140255560
  • EJ Verwey, Nelly E. Nerd: New Dictionary of South African Biography . Volume 1, Human Sciences Research Council 1995, ISBN 9780796916488 , pp. 160-162
  • Anne Emslie: The Owl House . Penguin Group 1991, ISBN 978-0670833689
  • Athol Fugard wrote the play The road to Mecca , based on Martin's life story, which premiered in May 1984. The film of the same name was released in August 1991.

Web links

Commons : Owl House  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 31 ° 52 ′ 3 ″  S , 24 ° 33 ′ 10 ″  E

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rosa Lyster: A Visit to South Africa's Strange, Astonishing Owl House. In: The New Yorker, February 1, 2018. Retrieved June 21, 2021
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Philip Harrison: Arts & Culture . Spearhead, 2005, ISBN 9780864865656 , p. 50
  3. ^ A b c d e f g E. J. Verwey, Nelly E. Sonderling: New Dictionary of South African Biography . Volume 1, Human Sciences Research Council 1995, pp. 160-162
  4. ^ A b c d South African History Online (SAHO): Helen Elizabeth Martins . Retrieved June 21, 2021
  5. ^ A b c Anne Emslie: Owl House sculptor dies . In: Mail & Guardian of November 24, 2000. Retrieved June 21, 2021
  6. ^ A b Graaff Reinet Tourism: Owl House & Helen Martins . Retrieved June 21, 2021
  7. ↑ Miss Helen's Magical World .
  8. ^ Internet Movie Database : The Road to Mecca (1991) .