Modern, Post-War and Contemporary Art
Live Virtual Auction, 5 - 6 April 2022
Art: Evening Sale
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About this Item
inscribed with part of the title and 'W H Auden 1983'; signed, dated 2004, inscribed with the artist's name, the title, and medium, and dedicated 'For Mario and Joy for an UBU failure' on the reverse
Notes
They are, and suffer; that is all they do;
A bandage hides the place where each is living,
His knowledge of the world restricted to
The treatment that the instruments are giving.
And lie apart like epochs from each other.
Truth in their sense is how much they can bear.
It is not talk like ours, but groans they smother—
And are remote as plants; we stand elsewhere.
For who when healthy can become a foot?
Even a scratch we can’t recall when cured …
But are boist’rous in a moment and believe …
In the common world of the uninjured, and cannot …
Imagine isolation. Only happiness is shared …
And anger, and the idea of love.
WH Auden
1. Robert Hodgins (2002) ‘A String of Beads: An interview with Robert Hodgins’, in Brenda Atkinson, Robert Hodgins, Cape Town: Tafelberg, pages 22 and 24.
Refer to lot 357 for further cataloguing notes.
Exhibited
Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, Robert Hodgins: Looking Back, 13 April to 11 May 2013.
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