17th Jul, 2017 17:00
Historic, Modern & Contemporary Art
133
Edoardo Villa (Italy/South Africa 1915-2011)
Homage to Isaac Witkin
painted steel on a steel base
Artwork date: 1989
Signature details: signed
Exhibited: Pretoria Art Museum, Villa Skotnes 25 Years, 3 August – 3 September 1989, colour illustration in the exhibition catalogue p.14. Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, Villa Skotnes 25 Years, 7–28 October 1989, colour illustration in the exhibition catalogue p.14.
Sold for R198,940
Estimated at R300,000 - R400,000
painted steel on a steel base
Artwork date: 1989
Signature details: signed
Exhibited: Pretoria Art Museum, Villa Skotnes 25 Years, 3 August – 3 September 1989, colour illustration in the exhibition catalogue p.14. Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, Villa Skotnes 25 Years, 7–28 October 1989, colour illustration in the exhibition catalogue p.14.
(1)
185 x 35 x 35 cm including base
Notes:
Edoardo Villa’s reputation as South Africa’s foremost modern sculptor, and indeed his influence in international circles, goes before him. His death at the age of 95 in 2011 brought to an end an extraordinarily prolific and inventive creative career, comprising well over one hundred solo and group exhibitions, and a huge treasure trove of work. His membership, with Cecil Skotnes, Sydney Kumalo and others, of the Amadlozi group in the 1960s is no accident. Villa was guided, as were others in the group, by a consistent desire to bend Western European avant-gardist ideas of form and material to an Africanised way of thinking and figuring. Thus, the obvious lineages of Henry Moore and an ‘international style’ of steel sculpture in the second half of the 20th century, while clearly present in Villa’s style, are subsumed in favour of a particular kind of monumentality and symmetricality, that is indisputably African.Homage to Isaac Witkin, produced in 1989, has many of these qualities – it has much in common with later work in Villa’s oeuvre, particularly the quirky and brightly painted vertical figures. Its totemic, anthropomorphic character is undoubtedly within his Africanised oeuvre, and bears little relation to the more angular and formally experimental work, first in fibreglass and wood and later in bronze, of the subject of the homage, influential Anglo-American sculptor Isaac Witkin. Witkin was of course born in Johannesburg, leaving in his youth to study and live in London. He was instrumental as a part of the so-called ‘New Generation’ of British sculptors in the 1960s, who were influenced by Pop Art and a more experimental formalism that Villa himself would have been drawn to. Witkin, who died in 2006, would undoubtedly have appreciated the homage.
James Sey
You can place an absentee bid through our website - please sign in to your account on our website to proceed.
In the My Account tab you can also enter telephone bids, or email bids@aspireart.net to log telephone/absentee bids.
Join us on the day of the auction to follow and bid in real-time.
The auction will be live-streamed with an audio-visual feed.
Auction: Historic, Modern & Contemporary Art, 17th Jul, 2017
Aspire Art Auctions’ second Johannesburg sale offered a selection of some of the best works produced by local and international artists available on the local market. Offerings included Cameroonian-born, Belgium-based, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Chilean, Eugenio Dittborn, and South Africans, William Kentridge, Kendell Geers, Louis Maqhubela, Cecil Skotnes, Maggie Laubser, Irma Stern, and Mohau Modisakeng, amongst others.
The sale was led by an international auction record of R1 200 320 achieved for a drawing, Children under Apartheid, by exiled South African artist Dumile Feni, as well as the successful sale of top international lot Golden Mask by renowned performance artist Marina Abramović.
Viewing
Friday 14 July 2017 | 10 am – 7 pm
Saturday 15 July 2017 | 10 am – 5 pm
Sunday 16 July 2017 | 10 am – 4 pm
HIGHLIGHTS
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.
Aspire Art provides inter-company transfer services for its Clients between Johannesburg and Cape Town branches. These are based on the size of the artwork(s), and charged as follows:
Small (≤60x90x10 cm): R480
Medium (≤90x120x15 cm): R960
Large (≤120x150x20 cm): R1,440
Over-size: Special quote
Should artwork(s) be collected or delivered to/from Clients by Aspire Art directly, the following charges will apply:
Collection/delivery ≤20km: R400
Collection/delivery 20km>R800≤50km
Collection/delivery >50km: Special quote
Packaging
A flat fee of R100 will be added to the invoice for packaging of unframed works on paper.
International Collectors Shipping Package
For collectors based outside South Africa who purchase regularly from Aspire Art’s auctions in South Africa, it does not make sense to ship artworks individually or per auction and pay shipping every time you buy another work. Consequently, we have developed a special collectors’ shipping package to assist in reducing shipping costs and the constant demands of logistics arrangements.
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.
Aspire Art will arrange suitable storage during, and cost-effective shipping at the end, of the annual period.
Collections
Collections are by appointment, with 24-hours’ notice
Clients are requested to contact the relevant office and inform Aspire Art of which artwork(s) they would like to collect, and allow a 24-hour window for Aspire Art’s logistics department to retrieve the artwork(s) and prepare them for collection.
Handling Fee
Aspire Art charges a 15% Handling Fee on all Logistics, Framing, Restoration and Conservation arranged by Aspire.