Notes

This painted panel was first exhibited in 1976 at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg when Skotnes held a solo exhibition of larger-scale panels and prints. The show included works created around the two central themes of his career: the human figure and the landscape. The panels depicted figures coloured in his rich earthy palette of umbers, ochres and reds, isolated in dark-cut backgrounds. They loomed out of these as if emerging from the shadows of the past – figures which did not exactly depict, but rather suggested the dimly known heroes of southern African history.

At the same time, Skotnes launched the portfolio of woodcut prints Ten Landscapes accompanied by poems written by Stephen Gray. The prints and panels provided each a contrast for the other; the one showing the sharp peaks, the burnt rocks, and the bleached desert of the land emptied of human life, the other a powerful human force that once invested that land with history.

1976 was a busy year of work and recognition for the artist. He was awarded the Medal of Honour for painting by the South African Academy for Art and Science and presented with a set of commemorative medals from the 1820 Settlers National Monument Foundation for his contribution to art in South Africa. In addition, he participated in an exhibition at Totem Meneghelli Gallery in Johannesburg, Decorated Bones which included work by his friends and fellow artists Aileen Lipkin, Guiseppe Cattaneo and Lucky Sibiya. He also made a panel titled Madonna for the Lady Chapel of St Boniface Anglican Church (designed by Herbert Baker) in Germiston, and an engraved mural for the Frik Scott Library at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein. The year represented many of the strands of work that absorbed him as an artist and demonstrated his remarkable productivity and diversity.

Yet 1976 was also a year of tragedy as protests exploded with devastating impact in his home city of Johannesburg. As a way of thinking about the violence of apartheid and the histories it elided, Skotnes had visited battle sites such as lsandhlwana, where Zulu soldiers had defeated a British army in 1879. Here he found a quiet and a solitude that conjured, for him the spirits of the dead whose lives had once animated, and for a time prevailed, in the landscapes he loved. The figure in this panel seems to represent the vital force of one such spirit, emerging from the gloom, insisting on being seen.—Pippa Skotnes, 2023.

Provenance

Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, 1976.

Private Collection.