Notes

‘Produced in 1990, Little Morals is a series of nine print works – each exquisitely handcoloured – which began as a collaboration between Robert Hodgins, Deborah Bell and Willian Kentridge, whilst working together for a short time at Caversham Press in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. Hodgins was so captivated by what the storyline and its associations offered him after the joint production of the first print – which was a type of title cover for what became the series – that he continued to develop the plot in a further eight scenes. Drawing on the visually dramatic grammar of old silent movies, which he recalled vividly from childhood, coupled with art historical and theatrical references re-conjured many years after these diversely rich cultural elements were first revealed to him as a very young boy in 1920s and 30s London, Hodgins threads together the development of a story that is as playful a fiction as it is an intimately anecdotal rendering of his earliest cultural roots. The plot is a simple one: a husband suspects his wife of an affair. He discovers them together. He shoots her in a fit of rage and jealousy, and finally presents her lover, who is a boxer, with one of her shoes as cold comfort.’1

1. Anthea Buys (ed) (2012) A Lasting Impression: The Robert Hodgins Print Archive, Johannesburg: Wits Art Museum, pages 153 and 155.

Literature

Anthea Buys (ed) (2012) A Lasting Impression: The Robert Hodgins Print Archive, Johannesburg: Wits Art Museum, illustrated in colour from pages 152 to 168.