16th Mar, 2022 19:00
Modern and Contemporary Art | Cape Town
3
Peter Clarke (South Africa 1929-2014)
Embrace
gouache on paper
Artwork date: 1966
Signature details: signed and dated '14-10-1966' bottom right
Sold for R102,420
Estimated at R120,000 - R160,000
gouache on paper
Artwork date: 1966
Signature details: signed and dated '14-10-1966' bottom right
(1)
28.5 x 34 cm; framed size: 51 x 56.5 x 4.5 cm
Provenance:
Private collection, Johannesburg.
Acquired directly from the artist.
Notes:
Peter Clarke holds a unique place in South African art, both for his poignant insights into South African society and for the consummate control of the mediums he chooses to best convey his message. His graphic skills were refined in printmaking classes at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 1961. And he acquired additional art skills and confidence though his attendance in 1962 at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam with funding from the Congress for Cultural Freedom in Paris, arranged through exiled South African writer, Es’kia Mphahlele, with whom Clarke was acquainted through their work
for Drum magazine. [1]
Clarke’s Embrace encapsulates the wonder of young love. The focal point in the vast landscape is the tender embrace of this couple, in which the young man takes the young woman’s hand in his and looks deeply into her eyes. She turns to him to return his loving gaze. The colours of their clothing – his orange sweater and her pale blue dress – are echoed throughout the landscape, emphasising their communing with nature. They blend into their surroundings as if they are at home here and comfortable in one another’s company.
However, the dark washes in the foreground and the sky foreshadow heavy weather on the horizon — perhaps this is an intimation of the political developments and increasing tensions of the mid-1960s, of which Clarke would have been only too aware, and a portend of the upheavals of the student uprisings of the 1970s. Or a hint that “the course of true love never did run smooth”, as Lysander says in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream?
Emma Bedford
1 Hobbs, P and Rankin, E. (2011). Listening to Distant Thunder: The Art of Peter Clarke. Standard Bank of
South Africa, Johannesburg, p.89.
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Auction: Modern and Contemporary Art | Cape Town, 16th Mar, 2022
The collection of 111 works by 74 artists boasts a selection of highly collectable modern and contemporary art-historical treasures. Rare and important pieces by artists including William Kentridge, Marlene Dumas and Robert Hodgins present collectors with a unique opportunity to add significant pieces to their collections. Also on offer are 4 fantastic oil paintings by South African modern master George Pemba and an impressive body of sculptural work, including artists Sydney Kumalo, Edoardo Villa, Bruce Arnott and David Brown.
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