17th Jun, 2018 18:00
Historic, Modern & Contemporary Art
19
Gerard Sekoto (South African 1913-1993)
Bustling street scene
oil on canvas
Artwork date: 1961
Signature details: signed and dated
Sold for R569,000
Estimated at R500,000 - R800,000
oil on canvas
Artwork date: 1961
Signature details: signed and dated
(1)
54 x 65 cm
Notes:
Gerard Sekoto painted this township scene in 1961, while living in what has mistakenly been called ‘self-imposed’ exile. After all, to what extent are we truly the masters of our exile? Sekoto’s decision to live abroad was never an easy one, which is why we find ourselves in the grip of nostalgia when looking at his paintings. Gestural, expressive, they often conjure conviviality and human warmth. This is strikingly evident in the oil painting entitled Bustling street scene. In the foreground we see a dapper man, coolly perched beside his bicycle – a man on the move – in conversation with a young mother. There are others milling about, since what Sekoto has cast for us is a familiar social scene, or, as Welsh cultural analyst Raymond Williams terms it, a ‘knowable community’.It is a glancing intimacy which Sekoto seeks to capture; a vision simple, pure, and ordinary. The brushstrokes are
effortless, the figures poised between abstraction and detail, for this is a world which can only be sketched, or felt in passing, like a breeze or a fleeting memory. And therein lies the pathos, because in Sekoto’s painting, it is both conviviality and melancholy which emerge. While this ‘bustling street scene’ has all the casual verve of life caught in passing, it is also a scene drawn from memory – a recollection in tranquillity. To understand a Gerard Sekoto art work, therefore, requires that we move past the clichéd summation of ‘urban black art’ or ‘social realism’. In Bustling street scene what we are witnessing is not the gravitas of an empirical impression but the weightlessness that stems from longing and loss. The beauty of the painting, like the beauty of a momentarily warm conversation, lies in its effervescence – and the flushed surge that returns when it is remembered.
Ashraf Jamal
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Auction: Historic, Modern & Contemporary Art, 17th Jun, 2018
In a slow and unresponsive market, amid tight economic conditions generally in South Africa, Aspire Art Auctions made impressive statements and set several world records.
Two rare works by Irma Stern achieved sparkling results. The top lot by value: Still life with magnolias, apples and bowl (1949), fetched R6 828 000, the highest price achieved for a work by Stern for over a year. Another significant still life, Still life with chrysanthemums in the artist’s handmade ceramic jug, from 1950, sold for R3 414 000.
A significant, world record was achieved for Peter Clarke – R1 479 400 for Lazy Day, an acrylic and gouache on paper from 1975, and records were also set for contemporary artists, Zander Blom and Paul Stopforth.
Viewing
Thursday 14 June 2018 | 10 am – 5 pm
Friday 15 June 2018 | 10 am – 5 pm
Saturday 16 June 2018 | 10 am – 5 pm
Sunday 17 June 2018 | 10 am – 5 pm
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