31st Oct, 2021 11:00

Art, Life and Love: The Collection of Nwabisa Xayiya (Live Auction)

 
  Lot 49
 
Lot 49 - Deborah Bell (South Africa 1957-)

49

Deborah Bell (South Africa 1957-)
Meditation 1

bronze on a steel base

Signature details: signed and numbered 1/5
Exhibited: Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, Everard Read, 7 to 9 September 2012.


 

bronze on a steel base

Signature details: signed and numbered 1/5
Exhibited: Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, Everard Read, 7 to 9 September 2012.

(1)

87 x 42 x 40 cm excluding base; 117 x 40 x 50 cm including base

Provenance:

Private collection, Johannesburg.

Everard Read, Johannesburg.

Notes:

Celebrated South African contemporary artist Deborah Bell works in a range of media including canvas, paper, dry point etching and large-scale bronzes. She has developed powerful and recognisable motifs across her works and her iconography draws from a wide range of cultures –African, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, early Christian and European. Fascinated by ancient civilisations and their excavated artefacts her work incorporates powerful, totemic images and layered visual, symbolic and iconographic references of past and present worlds.

Meditation 1 was first shown as a part of Bell’s Meditation series in Earthworks/Claybodies, a thematic exhibition of ceramic sculpture at the Pretoria Art Museum and Standard Bank Gallery in 2003 and the Sasol Museum in 2004. The show was curated by artist Wilma Cruise and included artwork by Deborah Bell, Guy du Toit, Josephine Ghesa and Cruise herself.

Cruise notes that, “all four artists work figuratively” and that they, “all use the body as a conveyor of meaning”. The most obvious link is, however, “their use of the material of fired clay”. They were united by the ways in which they boldly challenge the boundaries of ceramics. Bell is not known primarily for her work with clay. She has however achieved notable success with the medium and Cruise elaborates that “it takes an artist from outside ceramics to show us how the medium can be used in a manner that is both assertively physical in its dealing with the elements of clay and fire and at the same time challenging in its conceptual ramifications”.

The Meditation Series I-III were originally exhibited only in their clay form and later cast in bronze. An edition of 5 and 2 artists proof were cast and were first exhibited by the Everard Read Gallery at the 2012 FNB Joburg Artfair.

Bell’s work is represented in public and private collections around the world including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Smithsonian Institute and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, the Hara Museum in Tokyo and the IZIKO South African National Gallery in Cape Town.

[1] Cruise, W. (2003). On curating Earthworks/Claybodies: an exhibition of ceramic sculpture, de arte, 38:68, 57-58, DOI: 10.1080/00043389.2003.11877015. pp.57-58.

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Auction: Art, Life and Love: The Collection of Nwabisa Xayiya (Live Auction), 31st Oct, 2021

This October, 2021, we are honoured to present Art, Life and Love:  The Collection of Nwabisa Xayiya, a single owner auction showcasing the cultivated taste and style of Nwabisa Xayiya.

The auction offers examples by great modernists as well as exciting contemporary pieces. Notable is a selection of work by George Pemba. There is also a set of impressive urban scenes and portraits by Gerard Sekoto, a rarely seen Alexis Preller, a glorious Robert Hodgins, and varied examples of Dumile Feni’s work. Within the contemporary offering, there are outstanding works by Blessing Ngobeni, Sam Nhlengethwa, William Kentridge, Teresa Firmino, Athi-Patra Ruga, Kudzanai Chiurai, Nelson Makamo, Owusu-Ankomah and Nicholas Hlobo.

Viewing

Lots will be on view at the Xayiya residence: 63 4th Street, Houghton, Johannesburg
Saturday 23 October to Saturday 30 October from 10 am to 6 pm

View all lots in this sale

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