Alida Bothma
Alida Bothma’s biographical detail Born and bred in Pretoria, and now a Greyton resident, Alida obtained a diploma in Graphic Design, with distinction, at the Cape Town Technikon in 1973 and then worked as an illustrator with an advertising agency.
At the age of 26 she had her first international recognition when her work was included in a watercolour exhibition in Western Germany. The early 1980’s saw the beginning of her involvement in the illustration of children’s books and to date they number over 150.
Her paintings are often inspired by the written word or thoughts, prose, poetry and Scripture. Alida works in a variety of techniques and usually uses a mixture of different media.
She is the recipient of many national awards, among others, the Katrine Harries Medal in 1985; the MER Medal in 1988 and the ATKV Awards in 1993, 1997 and 2000. Her work has extensively been seen abroad in Japan, Belgium, Canada, Italy, the Slovak Republic, Iran and India.
In 1994 she received a merit award and in 2005 a bronze medal from the NOMA Concours (Unesco), Tokyo, Japan. Her work is represented in South Africa and internationally and she has held numerous solo exhibitions. She and her husband relocated from Port Elizabeth to Greyton in 2014, where she now has her studio.
I came across Alida Bothma’s art when searching for a topic and then remembered how beautifully she used to illustrate South African children’s books. In 2004 she was a runner-up in the Noma Concours Picture Book illustrations-award.
The Noma Concours for Picture Book Illustrations has been organised biennially by Asia/Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO (ACCU) supported by Noma International Book Development Fund. This Concours is to discover up-and-coming illustrators, graphic designers and artists in Asia (except Japan), the Pacific, Africa, Arab States, and Latin America & the Caribbean, to provide an opportunity at which they can present their works to offer incentives for their creative activities.
http://www.nomaaward.org/winners.shtml
Goue Lint My Storie Begint..(A book of verse for little children also Illustrated by Alida)
The Katrine Harries Award, originally the only and most prestigious award in South Africa for children’s book illustrations, but which had been dormant for the past nine years, will soon be awarded again.
Protea Boekhuis has kindly agreed to sponsor the Award on a continuous basis. The award that was made for the first time in the early 1960’s by the SA Library Association and later the South African Institute for Library and Information Science (SAILIS) has been awarded to South Africa’ s most well-known illustrators: Katrine Harries personally received the award twice before it was named after her. Thereafter illustrators such as Niki Daly, Joan Rankin, Alida Bothma, Cora Coetzee, Jeremy Grimsdell, amongst others, have received it, with Jude Daly finally receiving it in 1997 for Gift of the Sun.
Resource: http://scbwigauteng.blogspot.com/2007/09/katrine-harries-award-for-childrens.html
In 1997 her art was on display with other artists from South Africa in Belgium…see this link http://www.childlit.org.za/exantwerp.html
These two images immediately captured my attention!
Deeply Morbid
by Stevie Smith
Deeply morbid deeply morbid was the girl who typed the letters
Always out of office hours running with her social betters
But when daylight and the darkness of the office closed about her
Not for this ah not for this her office colleagues came to doubt her
It was that look within her eye
Why did it always seem to say goodbye?
Joan her name was and at lunchtime
Solitary solitary
She would go and watch the pictures
In the National Gallery
All alone all alone
This time with no friend beside her
She would go and watch the pictures
All alone.
Read the rest of the poem here:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=176218
Images from this link:
http://www.durbanville.info/alida_bothma/
Awards Alida has received
INTERNATIONAL:
1. Merit award: NOMA Concours (UNESCO), Tokyo, Japan 1994 – illustration in “Die Wit Vlinder by Corlia Fourie.
2. Bronze Medal and Runner-up award: NOMA Concours (UNESCO), Tokyo, Japan 2005 for a volume of poetry, Woordreise.
NATIONAL:
1. Katrine Harries Medal for illustration in 1985 for two books: All Everest’s Birds (Rona Rupert) and The Earth must be free (Pieter W. Grobbelaar).
2. M.E.R. Medal in 1988 for illustrations in the book Goue Fluit my storie is uit (compiled by Linda Roode).
3. ATKV Award for illustrators in 1993, 1997 and 2000 for the books Caty Collie Wobbles (Elsabe Steenberg), Stippe Stappe Stories, and Steweltjies na Wonderland (Hester Heese).
All art below: see her Facebook page: Alida Bothma Art.
Chessalee 