D. C. Boonzaier

D. C. Boonzaier
Portrait by Moses Kottler, 1918.
Born	11 November 1865 Patatsrivier, Carnarvon, Northern Cape
Died	20 March 1950(1950-03-20) (aged 84) Cape Town
Nationality	South African
Occupation	Cartoonist
Children	Gregoire Boonzaier

Daniël Cornelis Boonzaier (11 November 1865 - 20 March 1950), more commonly known as D.C. Boonzaier, was a South African cartoonist.^[1] He was famous for his caricatures of Cape politicians and celebrities at the turn of the 19th century, and thereafter for his anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist cartoons for Die Burger. Nowadays he is best known for fathering artist Gregoire Boonzaier.

Early life

Boonzaier was born in Patatsrivier, in the country districts near Carnarvon, then part of the Cape Colony, in 1856.^[2] He received his first education at Carnarvon and joined the local magistrate's office as a clerk. In 1882, when he was 16 years old, Boonzaier moved to Cape Town to work in the office of the Master of the Cape Supreme Court, having been offered the job because of his impressive copperplate handwriting.^[2] He also worked in the Colonial Office and Orphan Chamber.

Career

Boonzaier had drawn amateur caricatures since 1884.^[1] He was inspired by the work of William Howard Schröder, a cartoonist and publisher of the humorous weekly, The Knobkerrie, whom he later met when a work of his was accepted for publication. Boonzaier had no formal art tuition, but closely studied the work of George du Maurier and Phil May of Punch fame.

Caricature of Louis Botha (Owlographs, 1901).

In 1889 he resigned from his job in the civil service and became a professional cartoonist. Several newspapers, like Cape Punch, The Telephone and The Owl, began regularly publishing his work.^[1] In 1891 he started work on a gallery of South African and foreign notables and persuaded them to sign their caricatures; included are Paul Kruger, Piet Joubert, Ellen Terry, Sarah Bernhardt, Henrik Ibsen, Leo Tolstoy, Émile Zola, Alphonse Daudet and Pierre Loti. Another collection, Owlographs,^[3] published in 1901, was dedicated to the members and visitors of the celebrated Owl Club, a society co-founded by Boonzaier in 1894 and "whose particular purpose was to entertain important visitors to the Cape".^[2] The collection is of great historical interest, as it depicts virtually all the main political actors of the time: Lord Milner, Cecil Rhodes, Gordon Sprigg, John X. Merriman, J. W. Sauer and W. P. Schreiner; Sirs John Henry de Villiers, Henry Juta and James Rose Innes; and Boer leaders like Paul Kruger, President Steyn, Louis Botha, Christiaan de Wet and Francis William Reitz.

In 1903 Boonzaier was hired by The South Africa News, becoming South Africa's first full-time newspaper cartoonist.^[1] He began working for Die Burger when it was founded in 1915 and continued to do so until 1940.^[1] Most influential were Boonzaier's anti-capitalist cartoons featuring the character Hoggenheimer, whom Boonzaier had borrowed from turn-of-the-century musical The Girl from Kays to evoke Randlords like Sir Ernest Oppenheimer.^[4] In time this clearly Jewish character came to be used to inflame anti-Semitism,^[5] most notoriously in the strident opposition to Jewish immigration in the 1930s. Boonzaier's cartoons were also valuable propaganda for the Die Burger's first editor, the Afrikaner nationalist and future Prime Minister of South Africa, D. F. Malan, then beginning his political career.^[6]

Contribution to the arts

Remarkably for a boy from the veld with very little schooling, Boonzaier's home was "a haven of culture in Cape Town".^[1] He was a lifelong enthusiast for theatre, both as an actor and producer; was probably the first owner of a gramophone in Cape Town; and collected books on the Impressionists and Hague School and colour reproductions of their work not otherwise available in South Africa.^[2] He maintained correspondence with Tolstoy, Bernhardt, George Bernard Shaw, Henry Irving and Gilbert and Sullivan.^[2]

Boonzaier was a major patron to painter Pieter Wenning.^[7] Moses Kottler was another protégé. Boonzaier's closest friends were Wenning, Kottler, Sangiro and the great Dutch-South African sculptor Anton van Wouw.^[2] His son Gregoire Boonzaier is considered a household name in Cape Impressionism and made his own substantial contribution by founding and organising the New Group.^[8]

In popular culture

James A. Michener's historical novel The Covenant refers to Boonzaier's Hoggenheimer cartoons and their contribution to populist fears.^[9]

References