Page 9 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW Special Edition 3

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W
He gave drawing lessons for a quarter an
hour and he also earned money by
repainting family portraits. When later
there was some more income and the other
children started earning as well, he also
took his first drawing lessons himself.
At a young age, he developed a great love
for the animal world. He often visited the
wealthy Blaauw family on their country
estate in 's-Graveland and made himself
worthy by being helpful in the small zoo
there. He also made many sketches of the
living stock there and stood out among the
many distinguished guests who came to
stay at the estate.
Among them was Mr. Westerman, director
of Artis, who was so struck by the young
man's talent that he provided him with a
separate room in his zoo where he could
indulge his artistic sense to his heart's
content.
August turned out to have an excellent
drawing talent. That earned him increasing
requests to draw pets. He now devoted
himself entirely to the visual arts and
painted at 18 years old already the so
famous “Dead monkey”, printed on page 89
of the beautiful book “Gooise Schilders” by
Jan P. Koenraeds published by Strengholt in
1969. This book also contains much to read
about August as a painter. I may refer to
that. However, little attention is paid to his
important activities as a cynological painter
and painter cynologist, so that we will try
to fill that gap here.
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The first trip to Algiers
It was the beer brewer Heineken who gave
the young Le Gras in 1890 the opportunity
of his life by having him make a study trip
to Algiers at his expense. August had an
enormous talent for languages and soon
became fluent in the national language.
Moreover, because of his origin, he looked
rather southern and soon distinguished
himself, dressed in burnous, in nothing
from the indigenous population. This later
served him well, such as in a raid by
wandering Tuaregs on a caravan which he
had joined. And especially those times,
when between 1910 and 1914 he was the
only European in the Tunisian holy city of
Kairouan to experience the also holy war.
After a year and a half in Algeria, Heineken
died, and August was forced to return to
the Netherlands. He now had to make a
complete living from his painting and
produced large numbers of paintings and
drawings to keep his head above water.
Fortunately, another sponsor showed up,
the Amsterdam businessman Jan van
Eeghen, who enabled August to make three
more trips to Algeria and Tunisia.