Helen Anne Petrie (1932-2006) - South African female Anti-Apartheid painter, poet and activist

My sister, Carol, was merely stating a fact. Helen Petrie was my parents' mentally unstable neighbour from 1990 until her death in 2006. Our mother was a great comfort to Helen in her last years and was instrumental in making it possible for her to remain at her home by organising live-in healthcare workers and generally making sure that she was well looked after and happy. Without our mother, Helen would have been forced into a facility for the mentally unstable. Yes, Helen did kindly leave her a LITTLE something in her will, but this was certainly not my mother's motivation. The other neighbours were in fact trying to have her institutionalised. On bad days, she was most disruptive to say the least - she threw rocks on our roof and once a brick through our window! Yet, she also knitted a little outfit for my baby. Sadly she died before he was born. So what if my mother owns some of Helen's paintings? They are treasured gifts, regardless of their value!

In one of the articles written on Helen Petrie - myself and another small group of South African artists were mentioned as artists worthy to invest in.
I hope that the general norm of supporting our artists after their deaths will start changing very soon.
In my City Nelson Mandela Bay it is sad to see some of our brilliant artists ending up doing other work as they are not able to survive through their art as they are not exposed to potential art collectors, neither have studios in the City's busy spots, as is happening in other places in the Country or world.
Many years ago,just after our Democratic Dispensation, the visual artists of my City spoke with one voice under the Port Elizabeth Arts and Council and requested that the then Municipally owned old Post Office Building be made available as a Central Community Art Centre which was unfortunately ignored.
The historic and beautiful building was eventually sold to an Irish Investor and remained vacant. Unfortunately like in other places in our Country - the building has become vandalised.
The local Nelson Mandela Development Agency, however - through their passion for the Arts, have been working on getting our local artists on board in major development projects, and we will always remain deeply grateful to them.
We want to be able to be productive as the talented and recognised artists whom we are 24/7. Just as sports people need venues, we as visual artists
need studios!
We make an appeal to the Business Sector to invest into the minimal upliftment of some of our old vacant buildings in the City Centre - as identified by our artists (not outsiders as we are visionary people and know what would be most economically viable) to be suitable spots as studios.
Our artists have a great contribution to make, please allow us to do so.
I may be contacted via annetteduplessis@gmail.com
My website is at www.artmajeur.com/annetteduplessis
or find me under southafricanartists.com

The Times reports that "Her paintings are also said to be in the Tate, the National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. In fact none of the works of Petrie ... are in these galleries. Nor is there any proof that her noted collectors have any of her paintings", and "All the evidence, or rather lack of it, points to this being the early stages of ‘seeding’ a non-existent artist to build up a track record so, later on, works can be sold on the back of it."

Also, needless to say, "Standard Bank Executors" would not post the sort of juvenile comment which appears above, from Switzerland or otherwise. And Switzerland is the home of Glenn Strutt, who owns a lot of Petrie's paintings and is heavily promoting them online through grandiose press releases on sites with minimal vetting. Sites with proper peer review (like Wikipedia) have not accepted his contributions.