26th Nov, 2025 19:00
Modern & Contemporary Art - Evening Sale
36
Georgina Gratrix (South Africa 1982-)
Lawley Rd Flowers
oil on board
Artwork date: 2015
Signature details: signed and dated on the reverse
Exhibited: SMAC Gallery, Cape Town, 'Puppy Love', 3 February to 2 April 2016.
Literature: van Zy, M. (ed). 'Georgina Gratrix', Cape Town: SMAC Art Publishing, illustrated in colour on p. 41.
Exchange Rates*: USD 22 918,70 - 34 378,04
GBP 17 499,27 - 26 248,90
EURO 19 906,24 - 29 859,36
Sold for R613,250
Estimated at R400,000 - R600,000
Condition Report
The overall condition is very good.
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 board
Artwork date: 2015
Signature details: signed and dated on the reverse
Exhibited: SMAC Gallery, Cape Town, 'Puppy Love', 3 February to 2 April 2016.
Literature: van Zy, M. (ed). 'Georgina Gratrix', Cape Town: SMAC Art Publishing, illustrated in colour on p. 41.
Exchange Rates*: USD 22 918,70 - 34 378,04
GBP 17 499,27 - 26 248,90
EURO 19 906,24 - 29 859,36
(1)
155.5 x 120 cm; framed size: 157.5 x 122 x 5 cm
Provenance:
Private collection, Cape Town.
ABOUT THE ARTWORK
Lawley Rd Flowers captures Georgina Gratrix’s delight in excess: in paint, in colour, in humour. The canvas bursts with birds perched between oversized blooms, one small, insistent dog, pawing at the vase that can barely contain them, and jewels winking from thick smears of paint. Petals are pasted on like icing, her paint wrestling with itself: thick, messy and indulgent.
Slipping, sliding and piling up in excess, Gratrix’s works come alive when she lets paint misbehave. Each stroke feels both careless and completely intentional – a masterful balancing act. The result is a kind of joyful sabotage: taking painting seriously enough to have fun with it.
This work featured in Puppy Love, Gratrix’s 2016 solo exhibition at SMAC Gallery. Aptly titled, the show riffed on the idea of fleeting affection; that heady, unserious kind of love that can still feel all-consuming. The notion mirrors Gratrix’s practice. Her paintings flirt with seriousness but refuse to commit. She turns the tradition of still life on its head, setting the formal, grand history of oil painting against the kitsch and sentimental.
Painted in 2015, this work belongs to a turning point in Gratrix’s practice. Around this time, the artist began pushing beyond the edges of the canvas, cutting, collaging, and adorning her surfaces with sequins, eyes, and costume gems in what she called an “obsessive bedazzling”.[1] Gratrix transforms the bouquet – the most polite of subjects – into something gloriously unruly, bursting with character and painterly mischief.
[1] SMAC Gallery. (2016). Georgina Gratrix: Puppy Love, Exhibition Text. [O]. Available: https://www.smacgallery.com/exhibitions-archive-3/puppy-love.
Installation view of Puppy Love
Georgina Gratrix | Puppy Love | 2016 | Installation View | Exhibitions archive (Title)
COLLECTORS NOTE:
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This work formed part of the artist’s second solo exhibition with SMAC Gallery in 2016, which coincided with the launch of the artist’s monograph, GEORGINA GRATRIX.
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The Reunion: Georgina Gratrix, a major solo exhibition at the Norval Foundation in Cape Town in 2021, marked the artist’s first museum show in South Africa.
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Recent solo exhibitions include: Love like a sunset, a summer playlist at Stevenson in Cape Town (2025); Colima 302 at Proyectos Monclova in Mexico City (2023); Georgina Gratrix at Monica De Cardenas Gallery in Milan (2023); The Cult of Ugliness at the Irma Stern Museum in Cape Town (2022), which followed on from her residency at the museum and The Pleasure is Mine at Nicodim in Los Angeles (2020).
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Recent notable group exhibitions include: Some Dogs Go to Dallas at The Green Family Art Foundation in Texas (2024); Would you still love me if I painted parrots all day? at Dirimart in Istanbul (2022) and FIFTY SOUNDS at Gallery Kiche in Seoul (2021).
COLLECTIONS:
The artist is represented in numerous local and international collections, notably, Collection Leridon, Paris; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Missoni Collection, Milan; Ellerman House Collection, Cape Town and the Spier Art Collection, Stellenbosch.
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Auction: Modern & Contemporary Art - Evening Sale, 26th Nov, 2025
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