Notes

From his earliest attempts, when still under the sway of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, to his final group of elegant, Renaissance-style examples in 1975, Alexis Preller painted captivating portraits throughout his career. Portrait of a Young Woman, almost certainly painted in the late 1930s, is a rare, experimental and remarkable example. Likely inspired by visits to Ndebele villages and a significant trip to Swaziland, the portrait is early evidence of the artist’s decision to express in his paintings his own African identity.

Set against a lively, disorientating backdrop of blue, mauve and orange dashes, the sitter is a youthful, open-faced woman, her hair tightly braided, her top lip painted a surprising purple, and her neck decorated with strings of shells and beads. The head, with its beautiful, sleek, serpentine eyes, its plump lips, and its gentle allusions to Fang and Dogon sculpture, brings to mind the artist’s figure of Eve in his historically significant painting from 1937, The Garden of Eden. In the present lot, however, the paint is far more luxuriously applied: the cheeks and chin are built up with shimmering patches of vermillion, yellow and bright clay, while shades of the most fierce, electric orange define the eyelids, brows and earlobe.