Modern and Contemporary Art: Evening Sale

Live Virtual Auction, 1 April 2025

Modern and Contemporary Art: Evening Sale

Current Bid

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Lot 223
  • Vladimir Tretchikoff; Red Hot Pokers
  • Vladimir Tretchikoff; Red Hot Pokers
  • Vladimir Tretchikoff; Red Hot Pokers


Lot Estimate
ZAR 1 200 000 - 1 500 000
Current Bid
Starting at ZAR 1 000 000
Location
Cape Town
Delivery
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Condition Report
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About this Item

South African 1913-2006
Red Hot Pokers

signed and indistinctly dated '49

oil on canvas
68 by 55,5cm excluding frame; 95 by 82,5 by 6,5cm including frame

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.

View all Vladimir Tretchikoff lots for sale in this auction