{"id":1830,"date":"2022-05-26T15:30:40","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T13:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\/international\/?p=1830"},"modified":"2022-05-26T15:31:17","modified_gmt":"2022-05-26T13:31:17","slug":"autumn-wunderkammer-auction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\/international\/autumn-wunderkammer-auction\/","title":{"rendered":"Autumn Wunderkammer auction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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Russell Kaplan Auctioneers presents our Autumn Wunderkammer auction which includes our Modern and Contemporary Art sale to be held online on Saturday 28 May from 16:00 to 21:00.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The selection of artworks on offer comprises a playful, humorous, and at times thought-provoking, and inspiring antidote to the bleak world of current affairs. Art, even in its darkest manifestations is a positive statement of resilience and the human will to persist against the odds. Allow your imagination to be provoked as you explore our interactive online bidding platform. This particular auction represents a cross-section of some of the strongest painting that South Africa has to offer including Alexis Preller, Maggie Laubser, Walter Battiss, Robert Hodgins, Michael Taylor, Bastiaan Van Stenis, Ruby Swinney and Heidi Fourie. Notably Frances Goodman makes two appearances on this auction with beautiful mixed media works that blur the line between painting and installation. Beautiful silkscreen works by Wopko Jensma and Hannes Harrs, from the gallery and press of the late Egon Guenther are also exhibited. The auction is feast for the imagination and includes the illuminating insights of many more artists, so do take a trip though.\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Maria Magdalena (Maggie) Laubser<\/strong> (South Africa, 1886 – 1973), Woman and Birds<\/em>, oil on board, signed, signed on the reverse and dated 1958, 45.5 x 34.5cm (image size excluding frame) R350 000 – R500 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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The move towards abstraction in Maggie Laubser\u2019s work can partially be attributed to the artist’s gaze turning further inward. Earlier in her career with her more naturalistic works she had preferred to paint from memory, rather than from direct observation of the subject, and after her move to the Strand she become even more physically isolated than before. Allowing her time for contemplation and observation. In 1957 her brother Conrad fell seriously ill and died. It was a time of great loneliness for the artist, and her prodigious output in these years suggested she turned to her work for solace.<\/p>\n

Works from this era, such as the present lot, are still characterised by her pursuit of the concept of the spiritual unity of all creation through the meeting of naturalistic and abstract elements. Her earlier images and symbols, such as the figures and the simplified bird and flower-forms, are married to elements of pastoral abstraction where these beings become stylised symbols and forms set against flattened backgrounds, and familiar imagery is overlaid with fantasy and formalised into decorative motifs, surrealistic groupings, slick curves, and lively colours, using the abstract relationships of curve and line to emphasise her life-long theme of the harmony and mutual dependency of all living things.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Faith XLVII<\/strong>, Searching III<\/em>, acrylic and spray paint on paper, signed, inscribed with the title, Exhibited: Fragments of a Burnt History, David Krut Projects, 2012, \u00a0165 x 100cm (sheet size excluding frame) R20 000 – R30 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Searching III<\/em>was first exhibited at FaithXLVII\u2019s\u00a0immersive installation\u00a0Fragments of a Burnt History<\/em>at David Krut Projects in late 2012. The four works in the\u00a0Searching<\/em>series referenced a photographic project by Alexia Webster entitled\u00a0Waiting for Work<\/em>, which depicted individuals and groups of men in various postures of waiting. The works by both FaithXLVII and Webster address a particular kind of waiting in a South African context:\u00a0\u201cminers waiting for justice, workers waiting for a living wage, people waiting for service delivery, refugees waiting for assistance, we are all waiting for an honest politician. There has been so much waiting in this country that much time has been lost.\u201d Even though the artwork was created over ten years ago, the poignant message of the image carries perhaps even more relevancy today as situation has not changed, people are still waiting for a promised future that never quite arrives, waiting for change, salvation is deferred.<\/p>\n

The project was further expanded upon in a series of monotypes created at David Krut Print Workshop in Maboneng, and street art pieces, under the title\u00a0The Long Wait<\/em>, that could be found in Soweto, Newtown, Maboneng Precinct, Commissioner Street, Jan Smuts Avenue, Oxford Street, Louis Botha Avenue, Braamfontein, Yeoville and Rosebank. Some of which are still faintly visible all these years later as fragmented ghosts slowly consumed by the life of the city and people that pass these still waiting and searching figures.<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Walter Whall Battiss<\/strong> (South Africa, 1906 – 1982), Three Figures<\/em>, oil on canvas, signed, 33.5 x 40.5cm (image size excluding frame) R180 000 – R220 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Walter Whall Battiss<\/strong> (South Africa, 1906 – 1982), Figures in a Village<\/em>, oil on canvas, signed, 30.5 x 41cm (image size excluding frame) R180 000 – R220 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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The energetic handling of form, colour and texture in these lots is typical of the artist. Battiss often applied thickly layered paint using brush and palette knife: \u201cI painted with a palette-knife because the Wits art school said you should never paint with a palette knife,\u201d he once said of his alma mater. \u201cSo, I loved painting with a palette knife. I loved being a rebel, doing what they said I mustn\u2019t.\u201d This rebellious playfulness allowed the artist to explore the tactility and materiality of paint and pigment, and an engagement with surface as part of a continued artistic experimentation with techniques responding to Western modernism including abstraction, perspective, and simplification of form, alongside his deep knowledge of, and passion for, rock art.<\/p>\n

His portrayal of clusters of anonymous figures stacked in a depthless space reiterates insights obtained from his close observation and study of rock engravings and rock paintings and is invigorated by Battiss\u2019s joyful use of colour. Through a deep layering of thick paint Battiss plays with contrasting and complimentary colours as a way of initially defining forms and composition, which are then reinforced by scratching into the wet surface to reveal bursts of the tonalities beneath.<\/p>\n

These paintings walk an exuberant line between figuration and abstraction and owe as much to the artist\u2019s formal studies as his experiences travelling through Africa, the Mediterranean and various islands. Form and line nonetheless remained important alongside the celebration of colour and texture. The stylised figures drawn into the wet paint are typical of Battiss\u2019s sgraffito technique of creating descriptive detail through economy of line. This decorative method is closely associated with fresco painting and pottery, but also shares formal affinities with the techniques used by the rock engravers Battiss so admired.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Frances Goodman<\/strong> (South Africa, 1975 – ), Untitled<\/em>, stretched canvas applied with coloured sequins, unsigned. R80 000 – R90 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Frances Goodman <\/strong>(South Africa, 1975 – ), Untitled <\/em>(Blue Car Bonet), car bonnet and diamant\u00e9, unsigned, 2013, 116 x 165 x 13 cm. R50 000 – R80 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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In this piece the artist has created a work that sits at the complex interplay of the concepts of art, craft and consumerism, and interrogates concepts of femininity and female representation. Goodman has used the materials of labour associated with the beauty industry to create an enticing and overtly painterly image through the precise and laborious stitching of sequins to canvas.<\/p>\n

The refractive nature of the sequin creates an impressionistic effect, almost like a mirage. Goodman, in conversation with Keely Shinners, describes how a surface of sequins is, in a way, \u201cthere and not there.\u201d \u201cThe image never holds,\u201d she says, a metaphor for femininity as a \u201cconstantly changing idea,\u201d subject to projection, distortion, and dysphoria.<\/p>\n

By utilising sequins in the creation of this image, the artist subverts their traditional use as surface adornments of the fashion industry which invite the gaze, where here the experience is one of impenetrability as the eye is drawn towards, but bounces off these brittle, reflective sequinned surface. The image shifts and flutters, transforming as the light and the viewer\u2019s perspective changes, so that whatever meaning the images or titles may represent is no longer necessarily fixed and remains open to continued interpretation and contemplation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Alexis Preller <\/strong>(South Africa, 1911 – 1975), Sunflower<\/em>, oil on board, signed, dated 1946, 44 x 59cm (image size excluding frame) R400 000 – R600 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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The sunflower is a potent symbol because of its relationship to sunlight \u2013 sunflowers are known to track the sun in its arc across the sky each day, their faces always soaking up the light. This sunflower is, however, represented face down and decapitated, which could be read as symbolizing an \u2018end\u2019 or a \u2018loss\u2019, casting this painting as a melancholic reflection of Preller\u2019s emotional life in 1946. Some might argue that this work is heavy and that the narrative accompanying it is detrimental to the work because it is encoded with grief, but it is also always important to remember that the fact of artwork itself, although melancholic, is still a positive statement about the artists ability to use art as a method sublimating trauma.<\/p>\n

1946, the date inscribed on the face of the still life here presented was a difficult year and a turning point for Alexis Preller. Preller\u2019s relationship with the gallerist Christie Truter had ended abruptly. The complex and multilayered love affair, in terms of which Truter managed the gallery in which Preller exhibited his work, had becalmed Preller and encouraged him through the difficult years in which he had fought in the Second World War in North Africa. Truter, however, had developed a relationship with another and left Preller devastated and enraged, to the point where Preller had attempted suicide by consuming green paint, which in the 40s was manufactured with high concentrations of arsenic. It is, perhaps, telling then that this still life is dominated by green hues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

CLICK HERE to submit your press release to MyPR.co.za International\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Autumn Wunderkammer auction Submission Details<\/strong><\/p>\n

Author<\/strong>: Russell Kaplan<\/strong> from Russell Kaplan Auctioneers<\/a>.
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