Notes

Tretchikoff described his style as ‘symbolic realism’. And nowhere was this more prominent than in his flower studies. He first painted flowers in Java, enchanted by the rainbow-like colours
of the cannas in his garden. But his fascination with flowers had probably started much earlier, in the Far East. In Chinese culture, each flower symbolises a quality or idea.

—Boris Gorelik

Vladimir Tretchikoff’s floral compositions with their very distinctive painterly and colourful qualities are often set against a flat surface rendered in somewhat more muted shades.

In the present lot executed in 1948, the artist uses his signature impasto technique creating a sculptural effect with thickly applied red, black, dark blue and yellow paint, dramatically arranged in front of an array of white sword lilies. He offsets this profuse arrangement against a blue and green background creating a balanced composition.

Provenance

Stephan Welz & Co, Cape Town, 6 March 2000, lot 297.

Stephan Welz & Co, Cape Town, 20 October 2009, lot 657.