20th Apr, 2024 18:00

TAKING FLIGHT: Selected Works from the Phoenix Collection

 
Lot 27
 
Lot 27 - Robert Hodgins (South Africa 1920-2010)

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


Condition Report

The overall condition is excellent.

Minor surface dirt specks in the top left corner.

Please note, we are not qualified conservators and these reports give our opinion as to the general condition of the works. We advise that bidders view the lots in person to satisfy themselves with the condition of prospective purchases.

 

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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Fridays: 9am – 7pm

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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.

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.