Florence Louise Josephine Zerffi was born in 1882, London, England. She came to Cape Town in 1916 after studying art in London and at the Arts and Crafts Academy in Berlin. A friend of Nita Spilhaus, she joined SASA and was represented on their 1917 exhibition in a variety of media. Several portraits, a landscape, a woodcut, some book plates, a scarf and an embroidered cushion all prompted a local critic to write that "her exhibits reveal a great versatility of interests united by a very subtle sense of colour values. In her art needlework she lets the sheer joy in riotous colour have full scope. She shows two things ... to be coveted - a cushion and a scarf.
In subsequent group exhibitions her love of colour in her needlework was referred to as" a little too violent", but she was praised for her striking originality in her portraits. In her painting, she preferred the somber tones of twilight outdoor scenes and indoor subjects. Wagons on Greenmarket Square, painted in 1919 and exhibited on the SASA Annual Exhibition of 1920, was painted from her studio in Jenkins's Building, where a hotel now stands.
From 1921 to 1924 Zerffi served as Keeper of the Michaelis Collection in the Old Town House on Greenmarket Square. Zerffi's entries on SASA exhibitions ended with her assumption of this appointment, and it seems that she directed her energies into joint exhibitions with Ruth Prowse. Her marriage to Strat Caldecott in 1924 also drew her into joint exhibitions with him. His premature death in 1929 was a profound blow. She later taught painting privately and in a number of local schools. In 1938 she joined the New Group and showed with them, and in 1956 went to live with her son in London. She died in London, 1962.
Florence Louise Josephine Zerffi was born in 1882, London, England. She came to Cape Town in 1916 after studying art in London and at the Arts and Crafts Academy in Berlin. A friend of Nita Spilhaus, she joined SASA and was represented on their 1917 exhibition in a variety of media. Several portraits, a landscape, a woodcut, some book plates, a scarf and an embroidered cushion all prompted a local critic to write that "her exhibits reveal a great versatility of interests united by a very subtle sense of colour values. In her art needlework she lets the sheer joy in riotous colour have full scope. She shows two things ... to be coveted - a cushion and a scarf.
In subsequent group exhibitions her love of colour in her needlework was referred to as" a little too violent", but she was praised for her striking originality in her portraits. In her painting, she preferred the somber tones of twilight outdoor scenes and indoor subjects. Wagons on Greenmarket Square, painted in 1919 and exhibited on the SASA Annual Exhibition of 1920, was painted from her studio in Jenkins's Building, where a hotel now stands.
From 1921 to 1924 Zerffi served as Keeper of the Michaelis Collection in the Old Town House on Greenmarket Square. Zerffi's entries on SASA exhibitions ended with her assumption of this appointment, and it seems that she directed her energies into joint exhibitions with Ruth Prowse. Her marriage to Strat Caldecott in 1924 also drew her into joint exhibitions with him. His premature death in 1929 was a profound blow. She later taught painting privately and in a number of local schools. In 1938 she joined the New Group and showed with them, and in 1956 went to live with her son in London. She died in London, 1962.