The Ann Bryant Gallery

The Ann Bryant Art Gallery in Southernwood is a place well worth visiting when you are in East London.

Not only is it a love nest for two pictoresque doves having found their spot under the roof but the building's architectural structure takes the visitor back into a colonial past when space was not considered to be a luxury. 

The house, called originally The Gables, was built by the Savage family. Mr Savage had an export import business in East London and he built the stately house for his family but it must have cost him more than he could afford because shortly after the house was completed, he was declared bacnkrupt.

In 1907 the house was bought by Mr. Bryant to house his wife's art collection.

 

It is a host to a variety of art pieces of different styles and epoches.

They are tastefully exhibted in old colonial rooms with high pressed ceilings and large windows, having the right light and the right size for an art gallery 

It is a house that creates a desire to inhabit it. To make it your own.
Usurp it.

By the way, I find it an absolutely breath taking idea that there could be a husband somewhere out there who would buy a house to host my art collection. I must be definitely living in the wrong decade or centruy even. I love, love, love that thought. That is the husband I need. Well, Mrs Bryant had one like this.!

The building itself is a piece of art.

with wooden mahagony staircases, long drapes

colored glass windows

 the flair of the last century

and an absolutely majestic door

Local East London artist, Terry Flynn, famous for his Nahoon Beach landscapes oil paintings is also the assistant curator of the Ann Bryant Art Gallery. His work gives him still enough time to paint in the afternoon and it is easy to understand why he calls himeslf very lucky.

While he explains to me the structure and the composition of the painting he is presently working on I look around.

Terry's painter palette........

 

A table for playing cards

Hard to not envy him for his working place.

But since envy is a truly bad thing
let's rather enjoy the magic of this slightly wild garden outside

and the paintings and the aura
inside this beautiful house with it's Art Deco atmosphere

and lovingly arranged art pieces

always captivating my eyes is the one that does not want to stay in place and hangs skew

which you can find in any gallery

and then have a coffee and Lemon meringue at the Coach house.