29th Sep, 2021 19:00
Modern & Contemporary Art
38
Alexis Preller (South Africa 1911-1975)
Water carrier (red)
oil on board
Artwork date: 1938
Signature details: signed and dated top right
Literature: CF: Berman, E. and Nel. K. (2009). Alexis Preller: Collected images. Saxonwold: Shelf Publishing. A similar example illustrated in colour on p.8.
oil on board
Artwork date: 1938
Signature details: signed and dated top right
Literature: CF: Berman, E. and Nel. K. (2009). Alexis Preller: Collected images. Saxonwold: Shelf Publishing. A similar example illustrated in colour on p.8.
(1)
43 x 30 cm; framed size: 54 x 39 x 4.5 cm
Provenance:
Private collection, Hermanus.
Schweickerdt Fine Art Dealers, Pretoria.
Notes:
This work was purchased from Alexis Preller’s first exhibition by a childhood friend of the artist. This exhibition would have taken place in Pretoria at Glen’s Upstairs Salon in October 1935. Preller had been living in London where he studied at the Westminster School of Art and, in that same year, travelled home together with his mother and sister Minnie who had come to visit him in London. The voyage took them down the coast of France into the Mediterranean, along the coast of North Africa, through the Suez Canal, and then down the East African coast. Along the way Preller had the opportunity to disembark in towns like Tétouan in Morocco, Cairo and Mombasa, allowing him to catch a glimpse of Africa – its peoples and cultures – outside of his narrow experience in the southern region where he had lived.
Throughout his career, Preller drew on both African and European influences. Water Carrier (red), painted when Preller’s career was only in its infancy, is a bold and stiking rendition of a young woman. Perhaps a scene observed on his return trip from Europe or a memory from his youth in South Africa.
Using unmodulated tones, Preller seems to coax the form from colour - applying brushstrokes of thick paint in slightly different hues of an almost garish red. The young, naked water woman, with her face painted in profile, is reminiscent of Gauguin’s Tahitian works in both composition and technique. Indeed, the artist had developed an early interest in the Post-Impressionist artists Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh, reading articles on them while still at school. Preller has, in particular, often been said to have been considerably influenced by Gauguin’s works and, in 1937, was even called the South African Gauguin after an exhibition in Johannesburg.
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Auction: Modern & Contemporary Art, 29th Sep, 2021
Aspire Art Auctions brings a significant and insightfully compiled selection of top-quality modern and contemporary art to auction in Cape Town. The sale stars exceptional works by many of South Africa’s big signatures, including, William Kentridge, Robert Hodgins, Penny Siopis, Edoardo Villa, Sydney Kumalo and J.H Pierneef, amongst others. Also featured is an exciting collection of contemporary artists from elsewhere in Africa – Patrick Bongoy and Zemba Luzamba from the Congo, Moustapha Baïdi Oumarou from Cameroon and Gerald Chukwuma from Nigeria.
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