SEVEN WEEKS DEFILE PEAK BY G. J. BEUKES

GERHARD .J. BEUKES (1885 -1945)

Seven Weeks Defile Peak (2,325 m -7,628 ft) 

South Africa (Western Cape) 

In Seweweekspoort, oil on cardboard, 1936, Private collection USA 

The Mountain 

Seven Weeks Defile Peak   (2,325 m -7,628 ft) in Afrikaans Seweweekspoortpiek, is a peak in the Western Cape, South Africa. It is the highest mountain in the Cape Fold Belt and the highest point in the Western Cape province. Along with its western neighbour, Du Toits Peak, it qualifies as an Ultra and these are the only two in the country. It is located in the Klein Swartberg range, close to the Seweweekspoort  mountain pass.

The Swartberg mountains (black mountain in Afrikaans, a mountain range in the Western Cape province of South Africa, is composed of two main mountain chains running roughly east-west along the northern edge of the semi-arid Little Karoo. To the north of the range lies the other large semi-arid area in South Africa, the Great Karoo. Most of the Swartberg Mountains are above 2000 m high, making them the tallest mountains in the Western Cape. It is also one of the longest, spanning some 230 km from south of Laingsburg in the west to between Willowmore and Uniondale in the east. Geologically, these mountains are part of the Cape Fold Belt.

Much of the Swartberg is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The artist

Gerhard J. (Gabriel Jacobus) Beukes was born in a Afrikanner family of Western Cape aerea. He xas active as painter and early photographer in South Africa until the 1940s'. He is known for his landscape and mountains paintings of the Western Cape area and his paintings on cardboard of the Swartberg mountains.  No other information on this painter.