ARTHUR BRUCE HANCOCK was born on the 2 September 1912 near Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and died on 28 February 1990 in Cape Town.
He started painting in watercolours and pastels in Knysna, Western Cape, in 1937 where he received informal tuition and encouragement from the artist WG Wiles. He progressed to oils in about 1952.
ARTHUR BRUCE HANCOCK was born on the 2 September 1912 near Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and died on 28 February 1990 in Cape Town.
He started painting in watercolours and pastels in Knysna, Western Cape, in 1937 where he received informal tuition and encouragement from the artist WG Wiles. He progressed to oils in about 1952.
He received no formal instruction in drawing or painting; his natural talent was developed through hard work and the enjoyment of expressing himself through his work.
His work was exhibited very regularly at art shows throughout South Africa and was sold widely, both in South Africa and abroad over five decades.
Bruce and Hazel Hancock were joint secretaries of the Orange Free State Art Society in Bloemfontein for many years, and helped to run the annual Art Exhibition in the Bloemfontein City Hall, the premier Art Show in South Africa. Among the artists who became their good friends were Terrence Mc Caw, Gregoire, Don Madge, Father Frans Claerhout, Brian Wiles, Lucy Mullins, Errol Boyley, Piet van Heerden and many others.
He travelled widely around the country in search of subject matter, particularly landscape and rural scenes, rock- and seascapes, and village life, in Lesotho, Free Sate and Western Cape areas.
Bruce took an early retirement in 1967 to paint full time, aged 55, when he and his wife built a house in Kommetjie on the Cape Peninsula.
The couple are survived by a daughter who lives in Cape Town, and a son resident in France
