The Art and Gardens

AN EXTRAORDINARY COLOUR PALETTE

A botanical paradise nestled within a dramatic mountain setting, discover acres of tranquil gardens planted to reflect the changing seasons. Spectacularly in bloom every day of the year, the Estate acts as an incredible backdrop for art and sculpture, where Laurence Graff’s personal collection is a carefully curated to showcase South Africa’s finest contemporary artists.

The Gardens: a Living Canvas

A garden that dares to be different, designed to please the senses and complement the abundant flora and fauna. To encourage biodiversity, over 350 indigenous plants and other imported, non-invasive species nestle among art, sculpture, rippling water features and reflective pools that work in harmony to create the ultimate tranquil garden setting.

Highlights from The Gardens

The gardens of Delaire Graff Estate

The Landscape Artist

Keith Kirsten

Keith Kirsten is the globally recognised talent behind the gardens and landscaping. A celebrity horticulturist and global award-winning landscape designer, his expansive knowledge of African flora creates an uncompromisingly spectacular display day after day. A fitting backdrop to the Estate – and testament to his boundless passion for plants, people and the environment.

A sculpture of a head by Anton Smit

Sculptures

Anton Smit

Anton Smit’s sculptures epitomise his exceptional skill at imbuing his pieces, motionless though they are, with an undeniable feeling of movement. Each sculpture gives the impression that it is about to reach out and touch or speak to the viewer, and even the most abstract pieces express the instincts and feeling of humanity.

A sculpture by Lionel Smit in the gardens of Delaire Graff Estate

Sculptures

Lionel Smit

Lionel Smit is a South African artist who operates a remarkable studio just outside of Cape Town wherein he pursues his craft in all manner of media with areas dedicated to sculpture, painting and printmaking. Inspired by reflection, symmetry and the psychology of the Rorschach inkblot technique, Lionel Smit’s ‘Morphous’ is an illustration of the duality of human existence, encompassed by the mirrored figure of a Cape Malay woman.

A Dylan Lewis Cheetah sculpture in the gardens of Delaire Graff Estate

Sculptures

Dylan Lewis

Dylan Lewis´s primary inspiration is nature. On one level, his bronze sculptures celebrate the power and movement of Africa´s fauna; on another, the textures he creates capture the ancient rhythms and primeval ruggedness of the African continent’s landscapes.

A painting of Laurence Graff

The Art: a Personal Passion

The Estate serves as a remarkable art gallery, with more than 400 works from Laurence Graff’s private collection on display. An extraordinary testament to Laurence Graff’s passion for African art, works by Deborah Bell, Vladimir Tretchikoff, Lionel Smit and William Kentridge, amongst many others, draw your gaze. Whether gracing the walls, ceilings or gardens, these pieces are the finishing touches to a rarefied destination without parallel.

Highlights from the collection

A painting by Ndikhumbule Ngqinamb

Lodges & Spa Reception

Ndikhumbule Ngqinambi

Ndikhumbule Ngqinambi’s primary medium is oil on canvas with his inspirations rooted in film, theatre and real life. He describes his work as figurative expression. Ngqinambi deals with the motion of figures and how they react to certain situations through composition, colour and contrast.

Chinese Girl Painiting by Vladimir Tretchikoff 1952

Reception

Vladimir Tretchikoff

Delaire Graff is home to a very special painting. One of the most iconic pieces of the 20th Century – and the first piece of art to inspire a lifelong passion in Laurence Graff – guests can view Vladimir Tretchikoff’s iconic Chinese Girl, currently on display in the entrance to our main building.

a Deborah Bell wooden sculpture of a lady

The SPA

Deborah Bell

Deborah Bell is one of South Africa’s most acclaimed artists; a transcendent sculptor, painter, printmaker and collaborator. Her experience of mark-making is a highly spiritual and deeply personal. Memory and its private and public role is a prevailing theme within her works, a number of which are to be discovered throughout the Estate.

Kendell Geers sculpture at Delaire Graff Estate

Wine Lounge

Kendell Geers

By weaving together the socio-political, the activist, the mystical and the animistic traditions while drawing on sign, sigil and symbol, Kendell Geer’s work asserts a talismanic and totemic identity which radiates strong transformative energies. Each work is distilled from the process of the ‘word’ being made manifest.

A painting by Fred Schimmel

Delaire Graff Restaurant

Fred Schimmel

Fred Schimmel’s work epitomises twentieth-century abstract art within the South African context. Schimmel is not bound by the dictates of style, genre or medium. His strength as an artist resides in the versatility of styles, techniques and mediums that reflect his freedom of expression.

A sculpture by Nicolas Moreton

The Vinoteque

Nicolas Moreton

Nicolas Moreton is a modern master of the medium of stone carving. Within the quarried block, he sees the imaginings of his mind’s eye when, to the rest of us, the inert stone may as well be a mere doorstop. His work suggests the primordial power of the material with which he so deftly wrestles.

A Sydney Kumalo painting hanging on the wall of Delaire Graff Estate

Delaire Graff Restaurant

Sydney Kumalo

It was Sydney Kumalo’s choice of subjects, his conscious decision to use universal frames of reference and combine a wide range of sources, that made him tower above his peers and contemporaries. He draws strongly on African sculptural tradition, while articulately reflecting international modernism.

Sculpture of Hands by Hank Willis Thomas

Outside Reception

Hank Willis Thomas

A photographic conceptual artist primarily working with themes related to identity, history and popular culture. Hank’s interest in representing photographic ideas through unconventional materials results in a fascinating combination of works that exploit the visual complexities of the not so distant past.

A painting by William Kentridge

Delaire GRAFF RESTAURANT

William Kentridge

William Kentridge is undoubtedly the best-known South African artist. Working conceptually from a fixed point and with what is in essence, a very restricted technique – charcoal drawings with limited touches of pastel colour – Kentridge has developed these drawings into an oeuvre of astounding depth.

A sculpture of swallows in flight by Andre Stead

HŌSEKI Restaurant

André Stead

Working in collaboration with Lionel Smit, André Stead produced ‘Swallows in Flight’ featuring over 1,300 swirling Perspex swallows suspended over Indochine restaurant. Stead says the installation is “a symbol of freedom and endurance that describes the innate liberty and graceful beauty of the human spirit”.

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