Gallery

No account of Ainslie can be complete without thoughtful attention to his painting. This handbook is unable to do that at present. But when opportunity occurs to write up the insights and perceptions from such attention, it is intended here that the focus is aimed directly at the paintings and their making, without circumstantial factors dominating or impeding direct encounters between the careful onlooker and the works of art.

Sophia Ainslie’s recent book about her father and the Johannesburg Art Foundation, together with this handbook, establish a fertile ground for the study of Ainslie’s paintings.

Only once that occurs can his full stature in our cultural world be apparent.