Contact

Yellow flowers bending in the wind under a stormy sky above the Atlantic

A message for Koos, from the far side of the hill

West Coast Flowers, Namaqualand, near Koos's home

Writing to Koos

How your message reaches him

Koos lives on a remote farm in Namaqualand, in the far north west of South Africa. There is no signal on the farm and no easy way to reach him. Every now and then he drives to the top of a hill to make contact with the world.

So if you would like to write to Koos, send your message to us at Osner Gallery. We will put it on his message list, and it will reach him the next time he drives up the hill. For prints, the book, visits and anything else, we are happy to help you directly.

Collectors interested in one of Koos's original transparencies can write to us too. Tell us which picture you have in mind and we will find out whether the original is available.

Represented by

Osner Gallery

Osner Gallery, Hout Bay

Address: 14 Luisa Way, Hout Bay, Cape Town
Email: info@osnergallery.com
Telephone: +27 21 790 6494
WhatsApp: +27 83 472 1717
Open: Weekdays 10am to 5pm
Saturday 10am to 4pm
Sunday by appointment

Write to Koos WhatsApp Directions

Where Koos lives

Namaqualand

Namaqualand is one of Koos's first loves. He began his panoramic career in landscapes like these, and in the end he made his home here.

Namaqualand is a very underestimated piece of land, rich in history. It is famous worldwide for its flowers. There is nowhere like Namaqualand, with its hundreds and hundreds of species of flowers, and very rare succulents that you only find here.— Koos van der Lende

It is a winter rainfall desert, kept dry by the cold Benguela Current of the Atlantic and fed by its fog. For most of the year the land is bare and quiet. Then, after good winter rain, from mid August into September, the veld turns to flowers, daisies, vygies and bulbs as far as the eye can see.

6,000Some 6,000 kinds of plant grow in the Succulent Karoo, the biodiversity hotspot Namaqualand belongs to, and about 40 percent of them grow nowhere else on earth.

360More than 360 kinds of flowering plant have been found on a single square kilometre of the Richtersveld, many of them watered by the morning sea fog the locals call Malmokkies.

2007The year UNESCO named the Richtersveld a World Heritage Site, where Nama herders still move their flocks with the seasons and live in portable houses of rush mats.

Next door

The Richtersveld

Just to the north, along the Orange River, lies the Richtersveld, a mountain desert of bare rock and deep silence. It is home to the halfmens, half person, a tall succulent whose crown always leans to the north. The Nama say these plants are their ancestors, turned to look back towards the homeland they left.

Together with Namibia's Fish River Canyon it forms the |Ai-|Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park, and Koos spent two months photographing both sides of the river. Today it is close to home.

Namaqualand's history runs deep as well: the Nama were here long before anyone else, and from 1852 the copper mines at Okiep drew the first railway into the desert, its little trains pulled by mules.