Notes

‘Hannatjie van der Wat is a pioneer female abstract artist. Numbered modules [such as the present lot] or titles such as Visual Experience and Modular Horizontals point out the primacy of shapes, colour combinations, and the resultant visual experience. This she achieved by means of meticulously constructed, alternating horizontal and vertical flat planes and lines that are rendered dynamic with triangular thrusts; they touch delicately and tentatively, thereby producing powerful spatial tensions. American paintings were big and to achieve the same impact, Van der Wat combined modules of two or four that fit together.’ ¹

1. Marylin Martin (2016) ‘Abstract Art in South Africa: Then and Now’, in Isabel Wünsche and Wiebke Gronemeyer (eds) Practices of Abstract Art: Between Anarchism and Appropriation, Cambridge: Scholars Publishing, page 230.