14th Feb, 2020 20:00
Aspire X PIASA | Modern & Contemporary African Art
42
John Koenakeefe Mohl (South Africa 1903–1985)
Daybreak, After Snow Falling
oil on board
Artwork date: 1964
Signature details: signed and dated bottom right; signed, inscribed with the title and 'In Lesotho in 1964' on the reverse
Sold for R182,080
oil on board
Artwork date: 1964
Signature details: signed and dated bottom right; signed, inscribed with the title and 'In Lesotho in 1964' on the reverse
(1)
70 x 60 cm
Notes:
John Koenakeefe Mohl’s career is representative of the trajectory of many black South African artists in the first half of the 20th century. Born in 1903, he was brought up in Dinokana near Zeerust, in what is now part of the North-West Province. Removed from school by his father at a young age, he later trained as a teacher at missionary institutions in South Africa, and took opportunities to study art in Namibia and Germany. He returned to South Africa, and set up his own painting studio, White Studio, in 1944, in the backyard of his home in Sophiatown. This would be a precursor to his helping to found the famous Artists under the Sun inititaive in 1960. He would continue to paint and teach art until his death in 1985. Mohl’s position as an influential early modernist painter in the black South African tradition rests, like Pemba, Sekoto, Mancoba and others, on his ability to aesthetically transcribe the lived experience of black South Africans in a way that was denied them through official channels of white-dominated artistic culture for most of the 20th century. Mohl painted urban and rural scenes with equal skill and facility, and this idyllic and accomplished depiction of Basotho horsemen in a snowy mountainscape demonstrates the power of the artist’s imagination.
James Sey
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Auction: Aspire X PIASA | Modern & Contemporary African Art, 14th Feb, 2020
Aspire Art Auctions partnered with Paris-based house Piasa, to introduce an Africa-focused auction presenting some of the best examples of modern and contemporary art produced on this continent. This was the first time an African and European auction house partnered to present a sale of African art, in Africa, for a global audience.
The sale included 139 artists representing 27 countries from Africa and the diaspora and spotlighted key collecting segments from 20th century modernism to contemporary production and photography. The lead-lot, Marlene Dumas’ Oktober 1973 achieved a stellar R7,055,600 well above its high estimate of R3-5 million. Also on offer were some of the most in-demand African artists including Chéri Samba, Aboudia Abdoulaye Diarrassouba, Gareth Nyandoro, Mustafa Maluka and William Kentridge.
HIGHLIGHTS
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