oil on canvas

Artwork date: 1964
Signature details: signed bottom right; signed, dated and inscribed with the title on the reverse

(1)

48.5 x 53.5 cm

Notes:

Still life painting was a genre favoured by Erik Laubscher from the beginning of his artistic career in 1947. For him, it presented a means to explore, at once, all the essential elements of art. The international Modern Abstract movements, particularly the avant-garde contributions of the École de Paris and New York School, greatly influenced Laubscher to continuously explore new ways of seeing. The numerous still lifes he produced throughout his career came to reflect his personal stylistic developments and achievements.By the 1960s, hard-edge abstraction became the distinctive feature of Laubscher’s more mature signature style. Still Life with Turquoise Plate is an exceptional painting from this period, showing the artist’s innovative studies in geometric and spatial organisation. Laubscher painted this still life in 1964, the same year he presented his critically acclaimed solo exhibition at the Strand Galleries in Cape Town. Of this body of work, critic Neville Dubow commented on Laubscher’s ‘ability to handle strident colour’ and ‘his incisive feeling for form’.As subject matter, Laubscher chose three modest, readily available objects from his immediate surroundings (both the jug and the blue plate are well-liked objects which reappear in various other still lifes from the time) and arranged them in a formal construction on a plain surface, set against a nondescript background. He renders these objects into bold, flat outlines filled with complementary and warm colours, accented by areas of texture. He also simplified perspective, allowing one to observe closely how the various shapes of colour connect. The compositional relationship between all these pictorial elements is of importance in this painting. For Laubscher, this was a primary method of taking the ‘art of painting’ away from a purely representational function and directing it more towards abstraction. It is this balance between form for form’s sake and the artist’s enduring interest in the reality from which it was derived, that embodies the true character of Laubscher’s abstract expression. Still Life with Turquoise Plate is a visually strong and composed work, powerful in its seriousness, and complicated in its simplicity.

Marelize van Zyl

Sources:

[1] Fransen, H. (2009) Erik Laubscher: A Life in Art. Stellenbosch: SMAC Art Publishing. p. 92.