Clement Seneque was born on 14 August 1896 in Mauritius and died on 30 April 1930 of pneumonia in Durban, South Africa. His family moved to Durban in the early 1900s and lived on Umbilo Road. Clement attended local schools. As a young man he lived with his three sisters on Botanic Gardens Road in Durban following the death of his father in 1914 and his mother in 1917.

He served an architectural apprenticeship with a local firm, Chick and Bartholomew between 1915 and 1921 and became a registered member of the Natal Institute of Architects in 1917. Seneque received no formal art training.

He exhibited his first picture of Durban Bay in 1918 and was a regular exhibitor at the Natal Society of Artists' annual show from 1920 onwards. He was an active member of the NSA sketch club. In his early years he experimented with pencil, charcoal, pastel and watercolour and by 1920 he had begun to formulate a style of his own influenced by the work of South African artists J.H. Pierneef and Gwelo Goodman.
In 1921 Seneque worked for Alfred Agache's architectural firm in Paris while living with his uncle. On 18 July 1923 he married Marie Therese L'Hoste. Seneque held his first solo exhibition at the Maison des Artistes in 1925 after whichhe returned to Durban at the request of his sisters. From 1925 to 1930 his status as an artist increased and he formulated the practice of developing studio paintings from sketches.

In 1926 he became Vice-Chairman of the NSA and in 1927 he held his most comprehensive solo exhibition in Johannesburg. He worked as an architect until his death working on the Durban City of Vision project from 1928 - 29 and an Indian War Memorial.

He died aged 33 years old. He is remembered for his keen observation of the lines and planes of natural elements and the awe inspiring perspective he was able to bring to his paintings of man-made structures.

The Tatham Art Gallery held a retrospective exhibition of his work in 1969 and in 1984 an exhibition of Seneque's work toured the country. Examples of Seneque's work can be seen in the Durban Art Gallery, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Pretoria Art Museum, South African National Gallery, Tatham Art Gallery and the William Humphreys Art Gallery.


Source:
"Clement Seneque," Life With Art, Web, Dec. 2018

Trained in Paris at the École des Beaux Arts in architecture and town planning, Sénèque enjoyed recognition in his time as an architect and self-taught painter with a precise eye for architectural structure and details. He admired the work of Frank Brangwyn and locally that of Gwelo Goodman and Pierneef.

His verdant landscapes of Kwa-Zulu-Natal, light drenched architectural studies and harbour scenes were most popular in South Africa, eventually earning him the distinction of having his work acquired by all the major local public art collections and the post of chairman of the Natal Society of Arts Sketch Club in 1926.

His production was exceptionally brief in South Africa - only five years from 1925-1930 - before he died of pneumonia.

Clément Sénèque was born in Mauritius while the island was under British colonial rule but he was raised in Durban after his family moved in 1900. He qualified as an architect and worked in the profession until he moved to Paris in 1921. Sénèque enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts while working in the architectural firm of Alfred Agache. After marrying Marie Therese L'Hoste in Paris in 1923, he produced a small, beautiful and honeymoon-inspired group of French Alpine oils. The artist participated in several Paris salons, and staged a solo show at the Maison des Artistes in 1924. Sénèque and his wife returned to Durban where he lived and worked as an artist and an architect until his premature death from pneumonia at the age of 33. Image courtesy of J. H. Strydom