Pieter instructed Johannesburg auctioneer Ernest LEZARD to auction more than 30 of his paintings and drawings in February 1919. He was at the time under financial pressure, as his wife, Johanna Hillegonda BENNINK, required serious surgery. She underwent the operation, but died on 23 February 1919.
The sale was not a success, with almost a quarter of the works remaining unsold. The untitled Pretoria work was sold for £15 at the time, reputedly then the highest price paid for his painting. It was bought by Gordon Campbell TOMLINSON. Gordon was born on 06 October 1887, one of 13 children. He became an attorney and author, and played a leading role in the second Afrikaans language movement. Together with Prof. J.J. SMITH and Dr. Tobie MULLER, he published the periodical Ons Moedertaal which later merged with Die Huisgenoot. He spent most of his life in Vredefort. Shortly after buying the painting, he arranged a small local exhibition of his collection and presented a lecture. The painting was now sold by a Tomlinson descendant.
Pieter was born in The Hague, Holland in 1873 to a family with artistic associations, one or other member had been either a practicing artist or a dealer in artists' materials. He developed a passion for painting from an early age; the availability of art materials from his father’s shop and contact with his cousin Ype Wenning, a well known Frisian painter, were contributing factors. He had never studied art formally. After school he took a job at the Dutch Railways, where his language fluency saw him working as a foreign correspondent, and giving him an opportunity to travel to Europe and England. In the Great Railway Strike across the continent in 1902 and 1903, Peiter joined the strike at Dutch Railways, which led to the strikers dismissal. Pieter's marriage to a young widow with two children added to his responsibilities. After finding work with H.A.U.M. de Bussy, Holland’s largest publishing firm, he was offered a transfer to South Africa to work as bookkeeper in the Pretoria branch, arriving in South Africa in 1905.
In 1909, after working mostly in water colour and pen and ink, he was able to work in oils when a friend and neighbour, Professor JANSE, gave him his first colour box and brushes. In 1910, De Bussy’s decided to expand their business, and started selling art materials. Pieter was put in charge of this new department, where he met many of the artists active in Pretoria. While he was working daily in De Bussy’s Bookshop he used every available free Wednesday afternoon and Sundays to go out painting. It often took him about an hour to cycle out to his chosen sites where he would work furiously, sometimes till after sunset, before packing up and cycling back into town. De Bussy’s opened an office in Johannesburg between 1912-1913, and Pieter was appointed as manager of the art department. In 1913, he was sent by De Bussy’s to the Cape, where he met D.C. BOONZAIER and forged a friendship that would last until his death. In 1916, after fellow artists had collected money for him, he spent three months in the Cape, painting. It was in the autumnal and wintry Cape that he was happiest and most productive. By this time, he had left De Bussy’s and was working at Van Schaik's Bookshop, who gave him the three months off. Later in 1916, another fundraising effort saw Pieter go on an a second extended trip to the Cape. For the next five years, he lived mostly in the Cape, interrupted by short visits to his family, and trips to Lourenco Marques and Zanzibar. Between 1916 and 1919 he painted between 300 and 400 oils, though it was still not making him much money. His health had taken a turn for the worse, yet he was often seen canvas in hand, trudging through the rain, looking for subject matter to paint. During his last visit to the Cape in 1920, he felt sick and finally gave up painting in bad weather, only painting in good weather. By mid-1920 he was seriously ill and on one he collapsed and was discovered in the evening and helped home by passers-by. He was moved to a hospital soon after, and from there taken back to Pretoria by his son, where he was admitted to the Zuid-Afrikaanse Hospitaal. He was feverish and coughing violently, until eventually he passed away on the evening of 24 January 1921.
