20th Apr, 2024 18:00
TAKING FLIGHT: Selected Works from the Phoenix Collection
27
Robert Hodgins (South Africa 1920-2010)
Father and Son
oil on canvas
Artwork date: 1996
Signature details: signed, dated and inscribed with the title and medium on the reverse
Sold for R462,100
Estimated at R400,000 - R600,000
oil on canvas
Artwork date: 1996
Signature details: signed, dated and inscribed with the title and medium on the reverse
(1)
120 x 90 cm; framed size: 147 x 117 x 4 cm
Provenance:
Aspire Art, Johannesburg, Historic, Modern & Contemporary Art, 17 June 2018, lot 32.
Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg.
ABOUT THE ARTWORK
At first glance, Robert Hodgins’, Father and Son might look unfinished. But look again: it is not the painting that is unresolved; the painting is, precisely, of ideas coming into form.
Note in particular the irreducible paradox in the way the central figure – as asserted in hard, spare outlining in red and minimal modelling in blue – dissolves into the mute off-white background on the left. By the same token, Hodgins renders the figure as form emerging from out of nothingness.
Aficionados will recognise in Father and Son something like a command performance of Hodgins’ avowed painterly process: as an all but automatic engagement between the artist’s unconscious and the empty canvas, in which the artist would lay on marks without conscious purpose to ‘push paint around’ until form would emerge and finally cohere into the state of grace of the finished work of art.
Hodgins’ great skill as a painter and expert composition, intensely draw the eye to the focus area of the painting, the portraiture in the central figure – as counterpointed with the primitive, cartoonish paint-sketching in the smaller, disembodied head. There is a livid quality to the way Hodgins’ pinks, reds and blues come together to define form – an almost flayed rawness of sensibility. The effect is haunting, and made more so by a fundamental dualism in his portraiture. The two halves do not cohere, and the visage is left in an anxious irresolution that leads into the titular theme. One both atavistic and heavily invested with emotion: fraught with ambivalence and snagged on hooks of blood and self, continuity and discontinuity. Hodgins is far too good a painter to exploit autobiography to sentimental or anecdotal effect. But he never knew his own father, nor, himself, fathered a son. That non-consummation is frozen here in an image of rare accomplishment and human empathy.
COLLECTIONS:
The artist is represented in numerous local and international collections, notably, the Anglo-American collection, Johannesburg; Johannesburg Art Gallery; Javett Art Centre, Pretoria; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town; University of the Witwatersrand Art Gallery, Johannesburg and the William Humphreys Art Gallery, Kimberly.
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Auction: TAKING FLIGHT: Selected Works from the Phoenix Collection, 20th Apr, 2024
Viewing
AUCTION PREVIEW
29 March – 20 April
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IMPORTANT NOTICE:
Logistics
While we endeavour to assist our Clients as much as possible, we require artwork(s) to be delivered and/or collected from our premises by the Client. In instances where a Client is unable to deliver or collect artwork(s), Aspire staff is available to assist in this process by outsourcing the services to one of our preferred Service Providers. The cost for this will be for the Client’s account, with an additional Handling Fee of 15% charged on top of the Service Provider’s invoice.
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Small (≤60x90x10 cm): R480
Medium (≤90x120x15 cm): R960
Large (≤120x150x20 cm): R1,440
Over-size: Special quote
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Collection/delivery ≤20km: R400
Collection/delivery 20km>R800≤50km
Collection/delivery >50km: Special quote
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A flat fee of R100 will be added to the invoice for packaging of unframed works on paper.
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For buyers from outside South Africa, we will keep the artworks you have purchased in storage during the year and then ship all the works you have acquired during the year together, so the shipping costs are reduced. At the end of the annual period, we will source various quotes to get you the best price, and ship all your artworks to your desired address at once.
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Handling Fee
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