4th Mar, 2021 19:00
Modern & Contemporary Art
96
William Kentridge (South Africa 1955-)
Untitled (Scene before the Paris Opera)
charcoal, pastel and metallic ink on paper
Artwork date: 2012
Signature details: signed bottom right
Sold for R562,800
Estimated at R500,000 - R700,000
charcoal, pastel and metallic ink on paper
Artwork date: 2012
Signature details: signed bottom right
(1)
73 x 51 cm; Framed size: 112 x 88.5 x 1.5 cm
Johans Borman Fine Art, Cape Town, c.1998.
Notes:
Since studying at the l'École Jacques Lecoq in the early 1980s, William Kentridge has had an abiding interest in Paris, evident in this work with its ornate façade evoking the Paris Opera. Here the extraordinary opulence of its Napoleon III style provides the backdrop to naked wrestlers observed from an urbane coffee shop counter, an ideal vantage point from which to contemplate a scene of intense passions playing out in the city or perhaps remembered elements of Johannesburg’s theatre world. This drawing was produced around 1985/6 at a time of radical political upheaval in South Africa to which Kentridge responded with powerful works that marked his emergence as a significant multi-media artist. In 1984 and 1985 he directed Samuel Beckett’s Catastrophe, for the Wits Theatre and the Market Theatre, Johannesburg. Commissioned in 1982 by A.I.D.A. (Association Internationale de Défense des Artistes), Beckett had dedicated it to then imprisoned Czech reformer and playwright, Václav Havel. Kentridge’s charcoal drawing, Watteau’s Tea Room of 1984-5 and the animated film, Vetkoek/Fête Galante made in 1985, reference Antoine Watteau’s eighteenth-century depictions of aristocrats disporting themselves in a mythical Arcadian world, as a means to critique the increasing racial and social disparities in his home country.
Emma Bedford
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Auction: Modern & Contemporary Art, 4th Mar, 2021
Aspire Art Auctions’ Cape Town sale proved that the market for African and international art continues to thrive despite the pandemic.
The top lot by value was Irma Stern’s Dahlias and fruit, one of the most outstanding paintings from her late period, which achieved an impressive R5,234,800. Marlene Dumas scored a sensational hit when her early painting, Score, sold for R3,414,000, and stellar results were also achieved for celebrated artists; William Kentridge, George Pemba, Gerard Sekoto and Peter Clarke, amongst others, with world records at auction set for contemporary artists Turiya Magadlela and Gerhard Marx.
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