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Helen Martins
The Owl House is a museum in Nieu-Bethesda, Eastern Cape, South Africa. The owner, Helen Martins,
Construction The Owl House
turned her house and the area around it into a visionary environment, elaborately decorated with ground
Death
glass and containing more than 300 concrete sculptures including owls, camels, peacocks, pyramids, and
Museum people. She inherited the house from her parents and began its transformation after they died.[1]
In popular culture

Gallery Helen Martins [ edit ]

References Helen Martins was a reclusive outsider artist[2] who remains something of an enigma.[3] Born on 23
December 1897 in Nieu-Bethesda, she was the youngest of six surviving children of Pieter Jakobus
Further reading
Martins and Hester Catharina Cornelia van der Merwe.[4][5]
External links
Helen was schooled in Graaf-Reinet and obtained a teaching diploma at the teachers college in Graaf-
Reinet (now the police training college).[5]

In 1919, Helen Martins moved to the Transvaal where she began teaching. On 7 January 1920, she
married a colleague by the name of Willem Johannes Pienaar.[6][7] The couple travelled around the
country acting in theatre productions in the Transvaal, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. Their marriage was
A large arch with an owl at the peak.
not a happy one, and Helen left her husband on several occasions. She eventually divorced Pienaar in
1926.[6][7]

Some time around 1927 or 1928, Helen returned to Nieu-Bethesda where she stayed for the next 31
years taking care of her elderly parents. Her mother Hester, with whom she reportedly had a close
relationship, died of breast cancer in 1941.[6][7] Her father has been various described as "eccentric and
demanding"[4] and possibly abusive.[6] He lived in an outside room, with a stove and a bed to sleep on.
After her father died of stomach cancer in 1945,[6] Helen bricked up the windows, painted his room black,
and put a sign reading "The Lion's Den".[8]

When Martins was about 60, she married Mr. J.J.M. Niemand, a pensioner and furniture restorer in the Wikimedia | © OpenStreetMap

village. The marriage lasted only three months.[4] Location Nieu-Bethesda, Eastern Cape,
South Africa

Construction [ edit ] Website owlhouse.org.za

Her parents left Helen the house. After their deaths Martins started to transform the house and the
Helen Martins
garden, spending years creating a visionary environment.[9][5]

She is believed to have begun within the house, employing locals Jonas Adams and Piet van der Merwe
to make structural alterations, and covering interior surfaces with ground glass. Windows, mirrors and
lights further enhanced the illumination inside.[1][10] Martins also used cement and wire, decorating the
interior of her home and later building sculptures in her garden.[11][12] Her partner and lover Johannes
Hattingh constructed the first cement animals and build much of the early Owl House bestiary.[8] In 1964,
she was joined in her work by Koos Malgas, who helped her build the sculptures in the outside area
called the Camel Yard.[13] Theirs was an intensely collaborative process, meeting daily to envisioning and
create new works.[14]

Martins was inspired by Christian biblical texts, the poetry of Omar Khayyam, and various works by
William Blake.[11] The Camel Yard contains more than 300 sculptures, many of owls, camels, and people.
Most are oriented toward the east as a tribute to Martins' fascination with Mecca and the Orient. A sign in Born December 23, 1897
Nieu-Bethesda, Eastern Cape,
the yard says "This is My World."[1]
South Africa
There are suggestions that their neighbours may have been suspicious of the relationship between Died August 8, 1976
[15]
Malgas, a coloured man, and Martins, a white woman. There are also suggestions that Martins got Known for The Owl House
along better with her coloured neighbours (to whom she reportedly sold illegally brewed alcohol) than with
members of the austere Dutch Reformed Church.[6][7] Nonetheless, although she was somewhat reclusive (and External video
became increasingly so as she grew older), Helen Martins invited her neighbours to view her house when
decorated for Christmas.[15] There are also indications that her neighbours helped to care for Helen's father in
his last years, and that they gave her food when she did not care for herself.[6] Relationships between her and
the community she lived in were clearly complicated and often difficult.[6]

Death [ edit ]

Martin's longtime exposure to the fine crushed glass she used to decorate her walls and ceilings eventually “Helen Martin's Owl House – Nieu
caused her eyesight to start failing. This led her to attempt suicide by ingesting caustic soda on 6 August 1976 Bethesda” , Adrienne Allderman

at the age of 78.[8][6][16] She was found and taken to a hospital in Graaff-Reinet, where she died on 8 August
1976.[17]

Museum [ edit ]

As per her wishes,[5] the Owl House has been kept intact as a museum. In 1991, the Friends of The Owl House arranged for Koos Malgas to return to
Nieu-Bethesda to care for the site. The Owl House Foundation, which was formed in 1996, now manages the site.[1] The house was declared a
provincial heritage site in 1989[4] and was opened as a museum in 1992.[18]

In popular culture [ edit ]

Athol Fugard published a play based on Helen Martins[19] in 1985 called The Road to Mecca, which was later made into a film of the same name. In
2015, a Marathi play Prawaas was produced by Abbhivyaktee theatre group from Panaji (Goa). Written and directed by Saish Deshpande, the play was
influenced by Martin's story and Athol Fugard's play.

Gallery [ edit ]

One of the interior rooms Sculptures in the garden, Close-up of one of the
with crushed glass on most are facing east. sculptures.
the walls.

References [ edit ]

1. ^ a b c d "The Owl House, Nieu-Bethesda, South Africa" . PBS 11. ^ a b Pinchuck, Tony; Heuler, Hilary; Marle, Jeroen van; Mouritsen, Lone
Independent Lens. Retrieved 11 March 2016. (2012). The rough guide to South Africa, Lesotho & Swaziland. London:
2. ^ "Helen Martins" . Outsider Art Now. 27 June 2014. Retrieved 11 March Rough Guides. p. 394. ISBN 978-1405386500.
2016. 12. ^ Collins, Niki (1 June 1986). "South African Gaudi: Helen Martins" .
3. ^ Marsh, Rob (1994). Unsolved mysteries of Southern Africa. Cape Town: Women Artists News: 28. ISSN 0149-7081 . Retrieved 4 March 2016.
Struik. ISBN 9781868254064. 13. ^ McLean, Ian (2014). Double Desire: Transculturation and Indigenous
4. ^ a b c d Verwey, E. J. (1995). New dictionary of South African biography Contemporary Art. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 265.
(1st ed.). Pretoria: HSRC Publishers. pp. 160–162. ISBN 9780796916488. ISBN 9781443867436.
5. ^ a b c d "Helen Elizabeth Martins" . South African History Online. 14. ^ Malgas, Julia; Couzyn, Jeni (2008). Koos Malgas, sculptor of the Owl
Retrieved 11 March 2016. House. Nieu Bethesda: Firelizard. ISBN 9780953505821.
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Ross, Sue Imrie (1997). This is my world : the life of Helen 15. ^ a b "Outsider Art, Outsider Artists : South Africa's Queen of Outsider Art,
Martins, creator of the Owl House. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. Helen Martins" . Art and Design Inspiration. 15 December 2013.
ISBN 978-0195715163. 16. ^ Smiedt, David (2004). Are we there yet : chasing a childhood through
7. ^ a b c d "The Extraordinary Life of Helen Martins" . lynnssite. February South Africa. St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press. p. 289.
2015. Retrieved 1 February 2015. ISBN 978-0702233845.
8. ^ a b c Emslie, Anne (1997). A journey through the Owl House. 17. ^ "Helen Martins – The owlhouse" . theowlhouse.co.za. Retrieved
Johannesburg: Penguin Books. p. 3. ISBN 9780140255560. 4 March 2016.
9. ^ "Other Visionary Art Environments" . Philadelphia Magic Garden. 18. ^ Plessis, Heather du (2000). Tourism destinations southern Africa.
Retrieved 11 March 2016. [Kenwyn, South Africa]: Juta. p. 152. ISBN 9780702152726.
10. ^ "The Owl House – The owlhouse" . theowlhouse.co.za. Retrieved 19. ^ "The Owl House of Nieu-Bethesda" . Encounter South Africa. Retrieved
4 March 2016. 11 March 2016.

Further reading [ edit ]

Gotthardt, Alexxa (June 13, 2018). "The South African Teacher Who Turned Her Home into a Sanctuary of Color and Light" . Artsy. Retrieved June 24, 2018.
Lyster, Rosa (February 1, 2018). "A Visit to South Africa's Strange, Astonishing Owl House" . The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X .

External links [ edit ]

Official website Wikimedia Commons has

Site by The Owl House , at SAHRA media related to Owl House.

Categories: Visionary environments Monuments and memorials in South Africa Museums in the Eastern Cape Karoo
Art museums and galleries in South Africa Outsider artists Women outsider artists

This page was last edited on 10 April 2023, at 10:17 (UTC).

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