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Auction Record for Tretchikoff

18 Sep 2024

CAPE TOWN – The much-loved Russian-born Cape Town painter Vladimir Tretchikoff’s Balinese Girl, an absorbing portrait of a young Indonesian woman in traditional dress, thought to be painted circa 1954-56, sold to a telephone buyer at Strauss & Co’s evening sale of modern and contemporary art for R5 718 750 / $324 842, a new SA record.

Earlier in the day, all 48 works in a sale devoted to Calitzdorp artist-potter Hylton Nel sold, achieving what in the auction-world parlance is called a white-glove sale. Nel’s works frequently sold at prices well in excess of the pre-sale estimates. A pair of cats on yellow bases earned the top price, selling for R234 500/ $13 328.

The Tretchikoff auction record confirmed on-going demand for the artist, who died at age 92 in 2006. Best known for his vivid portraiture and canny marketing strategies that prefigured Pop art, Tretchikoff’s Balinese Girl derives from the artist’s classic period, when he originated such iconic works as Chinese Girl (1952) and Lady from Orient (1955) in his Cape Town studio. Tretchikoff settled in Cape Town in 1946.

www.straussart.co.za

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