17th Jul, 2017 17:00
Historic, Modern & Contemporary Art
139
George Pemba (South Africa 1912-2001)
In the kitchen
oil on canvas board
Artwork date: 1975
Signature details: signed and dated
Sold for R193,256
Estimated at R140,000 - R180,000
oil on canvas board
Artwork date: 1975
Signature details: signed and dated
(1)
29 x 39.5 cm
Notes:
In this luminous painting, George Pemba has captured a quintessential moment in everyday South African working-class life. ‘The Eastern Cape and Pemba are synonymous,’ writes biographer Sarah Hudleston. ‘He has lovingly recorded its landscapes and people, both urban and rural.’ (Hudleston 1996:14) The Christ figure in the painting on the kitchen wall (Pemba’s Xhosa parents were staunch Christians), the faded red corrugated iron roof of the house across the way, the aluminium pail that the woman is holding – these are all recognisable features from a particular era of township life.Born in 1912, Pemba painted this work when he was in his Sixties in the precipitous year before the 1976 Soweto uprising. Although far removed from the heat of that moment, this painting captures the mood and impoverished conditions of black life under apartheid. A striking work of social realism, it also stands out for its lively and truthful depiction of the interplay between light and shadow, which can clearly be seen in the shadow cast on the woman’s otherwise illuminated white apron, in the flash of red in the fabric of her doek [head scarf], in the smoke from the old man’s pipe catching the light as it travels through the air, and in the bright base of the tin bucket from which the younger man is drinking.The azure sky seen through the window and doorway is complemented by the earthen ochre walls, and echoed in the colour of the old man’s coat. These combined colour and light effects are jointly offset by the definitive depth of black in the shadows and outlines that shape the figures, adding dimensionality to their forms. The woman’s upturned palm introduces a subtle note of vulnerability to the narrative content of the scene. What plea is she making to the man who sits and smokes?
Alexandra Dodd
Sources:
Hudleston, S. (1996) Against All Odds. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball.
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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
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