Notes

Christo Coetzee was based in Paris from 1956 to 1961 where he was represented by Rodolphe Stadler who at that time also showed the works of leading European artists, Alberto Burri, Georges Mathieu, Antoni Tàpies, Mark Tobey and Karel Appel. Coetzee’s first exhibition at Galerie Stadler was a joint show with Lucio Fontana in 1959. In 1961 his work was included in The Art of Assemblage at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and in 1962 on l’Objet at the Louvre Museum.

Like Jackson Pollock, Coetzee was engaged in rethinking the interactive space between the art work and the artist. In Paris he had met members of the Gutai group and during a year spent in Japan in 1959 he explored shared interests in the performative aspects of art. No doubt, Japanese calligraphy also had a significant influence on the development of his painting at this time.

Working intuitively, he made use of expressive forms and gestural paint application to create an elegant and retro-chic evocation of the Parisian fifties and sixties. A great source of inspiration were the large stained-glass rose windows of Notre Dame de Paris, which he often saw illuminated on his evening walks to his studio and commented that “they looked like jewels”.ⁱ

“Et in Arcadia Ego”, interpreted as "Even in Arcadia I exist", refers to the famous pastoral painting by Nicolas Poussin in the Louvre, Paris, and was intended to set up an ironic contrast between the shadow of death and the usual idle merriment that the nymphs and swains of ancient Arcadia were thought to embody. Coetzee, who would have been very familiar with Poussin’s painting, was interested in themes of metamorphosis and the cycles of life, death and resurrection, which are explored in this painting that symbolises transformation and continuity.

i. Deon Viljoen and Michael Stevenson, Christo Coetzee: Paintings from London and Paris 1954 – 1964, Fernwood Press, 2001, p51.

Provenance

The Rodolphe Stadler Collection, Paris

Exhibited

Prix Marzotto pour la Peinture 'Communaute Europeenne', 1964

Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town, and Sandton Civic Art Gallery, Johannesburg, 2001, Christo Coetzee, Paintings From London and Paris, 1954-1964

Literature

Deon Viljoen and Michael Stevenson, Christo Coetzee, Paintings from London and Paris 1954-1964, Fernwood, Cape Town, 2001, p 52, no 58; p 70, no 73; illustrated in colour, and on end papers