Robert Hodgins (South Africa 1920-2010)
Une Saison en Enfers

oil on canvas

Artwork date: circa 2002
Signature details: inscribed, by the artist, with his name and the title and inscribed with the artist's name, date and Estate late Robert Hodgins on the reverse
Exchange Rates*: USD 32574.09 – 43432.12
EURO 29601.91 – 39469.21
GBP 24911.73 – 33215.65

(1)

120 x 120 x 2.5 cm

Provenance:

The personal collection of Mr Jan Neethling.

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

A striking meditation on the intersections of personal anguish, political injustice, and collective fate, Robert Hodgins’ Une Saison en Enfers borrows its title from Arthur Rimbaud’s 1873 prose poem. Written at the tender age of eighteen, in the aftermath of the poet’s turbulent and doomed relationship with fellow writer Paul Verlaine, Rimbaud’s text is a searing display of emotional turmoil, psychological crumbling, and the agonising conflict of queer desire in the 19^th century. Infused with theatrical flourishes and gothic symbolism, it is considered one of the greatest examples of French poetry at the turn of the century. Hodgins, long attuned to the moral complexities and inner tensions of the human condition, channels this dramatic, almost theatrical intensity. His imagery also draws loosely from the stage: perhaps an echo of Don Giovanni, the notorious libertine condemned to hell in Mozart’s opera, after his refusal to repent for his sins.[1]

If Rimbaud’s hell is personal and internal, the work’s title cannot but invoke its antithesis, Breyten Breytenbach's A Season in Paradise. The dazzling 1976 travelogue traces his first visit to South Africa, after thirteen years in exile, where the author is searching for a ‘paradise’ that coincides with the geography, mysticism, and mythologies of Africa. However, in reality, his homeland is an often hellish region of racial discrimination and bigotry – a paradise lost, not found. Hodgins brings this inner and outer dissonance into focus, treating hell not only as a poetic condition but as a contemporary reality.

Hodgins would often work with numerous ideas and points of reference within a single work, and it is interesting to note that the artist began painting this piece is 2002, shortly after attending a screening of Edifício Master (Master: A Building in Copacabana) at the Johannesburg Film Festival.[2] The Brazilian documentary offers an intimate, disquieting portrait of dozens of lives unfolding inside a single apartment block in Rio de Janeiro. Behind each door, a different story: some mundane, many marked by hardship, isolation, or violence. The film left Hodgins with the haunting impression that for many, particularly in countries like Brazil and South Africa, life itself was being lived in a kind of purgatory, or worse – a season in hell. In these nations marked by extreme economic inequality, high rates of violent crime, and entrenched social trauma, hell is not an abstract fear but an ongoing, everyday reality. The fate we fear for the dead is, for some, already the condition of the living.

Visually, Hodgins evokes this fractured existence by creating a grid of small, cell-like compartments. Within each confined space, a distorted figure can be seen – some writhing, others slumped or cowering – caught in varying states of tension, despair, or discomfort, powerfully invoking a hellish world of humans trapped in their various traumas. Painted in a dominant palette of reds and purples, the canvas seems to burn from within. Some compartments resemble infernos, with fire-and-brimstone intensity, conjuring divine punishment or psychological torment. In stark contrast, one room is painted in yellow, containing a lone, resting figure – a rare moment of quiet amidst the chaos, perhaps like a flicker of grace in a ravaged world.

Hodgins’ ability to draw on a rich trove of literary references endeared him to a wide audience who appreciate his mastery of the mediums of oil paint, as much as they treasure the enriching experiences afforded by his entertaining iconography. His signature style: expressive brushwork, fragmented forms, and caustic humour, is here wielded to chilling effect.

[^{1] Neil Dundas in conversation with Emma Bedford and Sarah Sinisi, 21 May 2025}

^{[2] Ibid}

COLLECTIONS:

The artist is represented in numerous local and international collections, notably, the Anglo-American collection, Johannesburg; Johannesburg Art Gallery; Javett Art Centre, Pretoria; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town; University of the Witwatersrand Art Gallery, Johannesburg and the William Humphreys Art Gallery, Kimberly.