Notes

These paintings of lovers in different positions of embrace powerfully depict the anguish of desire, a struggle of wills in which the woman shifts and twists towards and away from the man, desiring consummation yet fearful of the intrusion.¹

^1. David Krut Publishing (2004) Deborah Bell, Johannesburg: David Krut, Taxi-Art Book 010, page 13.

‘I started painting this in Paris where I had a studio for a few months at the Cité Internationale des Arts. It was influenced by the cafe/nightclub spaces I had seen there. It was a time in my art career that I was looking at the relationship between men and women and using thick scumbled oil paint which for me stood for the corporeal flesh and swirl of emotions. The scenes always took place in dark interiors with no obvious way to the outside. They were intense, desperate embraces, less about love than physical need, wanting to find wholeness through a connection in the flesh. They predate the more spiritual works where the woman and man moved outside into the landscape and embarked on a journey, now unclothed in innocent nakedness.
The loneliness of the man and the way I painted all the heavy, heaving clothing showed all of their inner unease, and the disconnected head of the man in the bottom right must be the reason that I called it The Dance of Salome’. – Deborah Bell, 2023.

Provenance

Goodman Gallery, Hyde Park, 1988.

Private Collection.