Dear fellow alumni,

 

We all know this saying “old soldiers never die ...”. I therefore write this letter so that one of the icons of the former Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education (PU for CHE) will not be forgotten.

 

Oom Piet van Maarleveld (89) passed away early in the morning on Thursday, 19 October 2017. To me he was a colleague, but to the students of the PU for CHE, Oom Piet was a legend – everyone knew “Oom Piet Foudies”.

Cigarette in mouth, armed with his precious super-sized Linhof camera, he was all over the campus and around the sports fields of the university.

 

With his typical biting Dutch honesty, he did not hesitate to move the subjects of his photos around until he was satisfied. In this manner, he took around 250 000 photos for the PU for CHE, which are currently housed in the archives as the Piet Photo Art Collection.

 

Piet van Maarleveld was born in Alkmaar in the Netherlands and came to South Africa in 1952 to work for Sasol. His then girlfriend, Ina, followed him to South Africa and they were married here. In 1958 he came to Potchefstroom to study. He started taking photos for an income and gave up his studies.

 

He became the university’s official photographer in 1983, but long before that he took photos for many departments of the university. His studio on campus was in the north-eastern corner of the cellar of the JS van der Merwe Building (E5). Today, a sticker advertising Fuji film on one of the windows still marks this place.

 

Oom Piet retired in 1990, but for some years afterwards still helped the archives and museum of the university to organise the Piet Photo Art Collection. He is survived by his wife, a daughter and two grandchildren.

 

Kind regards

 

Lennie Gouws

(Letter condensed.)