Modern and Contemporary Art from Africa
Timed Online Auction, 13 - 28 February 2023
Modern and Contemporary Art from Africa
About the SessionIncluding Property of Collectors and The Harry Kantor Collection.
Harry Kantor (1934-2019), a Capetonian, moved to Harare in the late 1950s. He supported local art institutions such as the National Gallery of Zimbabwe and Gallery Delta, serving as Chairman of both institutions. He promoted Zimbabwe's artists globally and amassed over 300 works, including European and indigenous African painters, Victorian and Chinese pieces. His collection includes significant roots of early Zimbabwean painting. Five paintings from his collection are on display at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Arts' exhibition "When We See Us", featuring African figurative art.
Lots 51-62 can be viewed on our current Timed Online Auction, and lot 75 in our Curatorial Voices Auction, both taking place on the 28th of February.
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
About this Item
signed and numbered 39/150 in pencil in the margin
Notes
Natalie Knight was sent to assess Norman Catherine's 1980 solo show at Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, and subsequently commissioned him to design the present lot as the poster for her upcoming play, There's No Sugar Left, which opened Upstairs at the Market Theatre in February of 1981.1
1. Natalie Knight (2017) The Big Picture: An Art-O-Biography, Johannesburg: Batya Bricker, page 51.
Norman Catherine attended the East London (South Africa) Technical College Art School from 1967 to 1968 where he completed an art matric. During the 1980s he lived in Los Angeles and New York and he currently lives at Hartbeespoort Dam, North West Province.
His prodigious output has been engaging art enthusiasts since 1969 when he held his first solo exhibition in Johannesburg. He works in various media including painting, sculpture, mixed media, printmaking, wall hangings and bronze and has exhibited extensively in South Africa and internationally. His work is included in numerous local private, museum and corporate collections as well as in the Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Museum collections in the USA.
Catherine’s art projects a dystopian vision of the socio-political landscape. History, horror, crime, conflict, psychoses and politics all serve as stimuli for his creative output, which vacillates between the macabre and the comic, between a gasp and a giggle. He conveys his cynical vision through a juxtaposition of dark and light sensibilities that veer between an internal hallucinatory realm and a literal commentary on the external world. He rebels against any dogma or rigid definition, including of his own work.
Provenance
Strauss & Co, Online, 27 November 2017, lot 34.
Property of Collectors.
Literature
Wilhelm van Rensburg (ed.) (2014). Norman Catherine : Print Editions 1968-2014, Johannesburg: Gallery AOP & Norman Catherine, another example from this edition is illustrated in colour on page 18.
Natalie Knight (2017) The Big Picture: An Art-O-Biography, Johannesburg: Batya Bricker, illustrated on front cover and on page 50.
Other lots that might interest you
