Welgemeend Satire & Irony August Art Month 2019 Robert Hodgins, Stanley Pinker, Alexander Podlashuc Almost ForgoĴ en Exhibition Catalogue Peter Haden

Satire & Irony

Robert Hodgins, Stanley Pinker, Alexander Podlashuc, from the Kilbourn, Bloch, Wiese & Podlashuc Collections

& Almost ForgoĴen: Peter Haden a selection of works from Private Collections

Welgemeend, August 2019

Welgemeend, cnr Welgemeend and Lingen Street, Gardens, Cape Town

3 Contents

Page

Satire & Irony: an introduction by Frank Kilbourn 4

SATIRE AND IRONY were grist to the mill for this painter ... by Neil Dundas 8

Alexander Podlashuc (1930-2009) by Hayden Proud 10

Alexander and Marianne Podlashuc – “Satire” a personal portrait Satire is the use of humour, exaggeration or by Professor Leo Podlashuc 12 ridicule to expose people’s stupidity or vices. It is a form of social criticism that can disturb Stanley Pinker (1924-2012) and amuse the viewer at the same time. by Matthew Partridge 14 “Irony” In our time – Stanley Pinker in Irony is used to convey the opposite of what Graaff-Reinet (1980s) is said or depicted, without the intended by Deon Viljoen 22 purpose of hurting the other person. In artworks, the title often serves to highlight the Index 92 ironic qualities of the work. 4 Satire & Irony: an introduction

Another year has passed and the 6th edition of near or underneath Eskom power lines, without As was often the case in our art education, Louis the annual Welgemeend Art Month is upon thinking too much about it. Once we noticed Schachat of Die Kunskamer, was the person that us, another treasured opportunity to share our the red, radiated eyes of the cattle in Alexander introduced me to the fascinating, subtle and multi- passion for South African art while contributing Podlashuc’s work, however, we started worrying faceted work of Stanley Pinker. There were two to the restoration of the beautiful Welgemeend about the effect of electricity on animals and the works in the gallery, In Search of a New Muse and Manor House. The past year in South Africa has meat we eat, while having a laugh at the clever Now and Then, both were unlike anything I had been a very typical one, full of high hopes and title and cynical composition of the work. ever seen before, really challenging my perception despair, progress and disillusionment, anger and I came upon an exhibition of Robert Hodgins at and understanding of painting, not to mention promise. the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg in 1998, the way a “painting” should look or be framed. A With that in mind, it is no wonder that Satire completely by chance, having gone to the gallery whole new journey of discovery started and due & Irony sprung to mind as a possible theme for to enquire about a work of Cecil Skotnes. The to Oom Louis’ persistence and generous payment the 2019 exhibition. Not only does the political, exhibition was still being set up and I sneaked in terms, Now and Then made its way to our home in economic and bureaucratic environment in to have a look. A Night at the Opera was the first Johannesburg, to our enduring delight. our country drive one to distraction, it also work of his that I ever saw, and I was immediately Our encounters with the works of these three serves to amuse … I have long believed that the smitten. The sensuous and abundant use of artists, caused us to start viewing, appreciating ability to laugh at oneself and one’s surrounding colour, red in this case, was so seductive and the and collecting art with a very different frame of circumstances, is vital in order to survive and figures, barely outlined but clearly demonstrating mind. The works contained so much to discover thrive in challenging times. the tension between the haughty husband and and digest, to marvel at and laugh about, so many The imaginative use of humour connects the wife at the opera, so subtle and subversive, that unanswered questions and unsolved mysteries works of all the artists in this year’s exhibition, I immediately wanted to buy the work. Sadly, it that aesthetics alone became a less and less albeit manifested in a multitude of ways – satirical was impossible, out of my price range and already important criteria for inclusion in our collection. and ironic, but also acerbic, laconic, sarcastic, reserved, I learned, but the desire to know more Daarom is dit so ’n groot lekkerte om vanjaar subversive, witty, dry, whimsical and outrageous. about the artist and to find ways to acquire his ’n uitstalling van die kunstenaars se werke by Collectively, an irresistible invitation to embark works, was born and still persists. Welgemeend te kan hou en hul verbeelding, upon a reflective journey of (self)discovery while We capitalized on Hodgins’ commitment to having a good laugh along the way. vaardigheid en vindingrykheid met bestaande en make his art available to a wider audience by aspirant kunsliefhebbers in Kaapstad te deel. Dit Life is full of ironies, some delightful, others not. working in smaller scale, doing monotypes, water is ook ‘n tuiskoms van ’n aard vir Pinker en die colours and silkscreens and acquired the ironic It is ironic, perhaps, that Lizelle and I became Podlashucs wat op ’n stadium in Tamboerskloof watercolour Little Man in His Office in 1998, aware of the work of Alexander and Marianne gewoon het, nie ver van ons huis nie. Podlashuc before we encountered the more followed by the delightful Performance, Artist known artists, Stanley Pinker and Robert Hodgins. & Audience in 2002. The latter work strongly Daar is duidelike ooreenkomste en groot verskille We purchased Cattle in the Forest in 1998 from reminds me of Chris De Burgh’s song “Patricia the waarneembaar in hul werke. Al vier, (Hodgins, the Strydom Gallery in George and marveled stripper” and I have not stopped marvelling at the Pinker, Alexander en Marianne Podlashuc), at the cynical wit underlying the compelling riotous colours in the background and the comic lewer kommentaar op die sosio-ekonomiese composition of the work. Growing up in rural tension created by the apparent disinterest in the omstandighede van hul tyd en die gebruik van kleur areas, we often encountered cattle grazing performance of two members of the audience. en humor is baie belangrik vir almal van hulle. 5

Frank and Lizelle Kilbourn 6 Hodgins gebruik kleur op ’n ongewone en Haar empatie met haar medemens, veral die wat a pleasure to work with Jonathan and Marion dramatiese manier, beide wat skakering en onder apartheid gely het, is deurgans merkbaar. Bloch who share our passion for the works of aanwending aanbetref. Daar is vir my ’n vryheid Die twee werke van haar wat by die uitstalling Robert Hodgins and also believe in making art fun en uitbundigheid in sy kleurgebruik wat spreek oor ingesluit is, het beide ’n satiriese aanslag. and accessible to others. It was great to meet Leo sy liefde vir verf en kleur opsigself, ’n interessant Something that all these artists have in common, and Erin Podlashuc, who shared wonderful stories samemenging van spontaniteit en struktuur. other than that the titles of their works are key about Pod and Marianne and generously gave Figure word dikwels nie in groot besonderhede to the understanding thereof, is that market us access to a treasure trove of their works. The afgebeeld nie, maar tog, uit hul houding, tipering, recognition came to them relatively late in life. commentary provided by Leo on Pods’ key works plasing en kleredrag word die rol wat die persoon Although they enjoyed the respect of their peers will undoubtedly decode the works to everyone’s in die skildery vertolk, duidelik. in their lifetimes and held several critically delight. Pinker se werke is vir my baie akademies en acclaimed exhibitions amongst them, only Much thanks goes to Caro Wiese for parting gesofistikeerd van aard met ’n meer subtiele Hodgins enjoyed significant financial success and temporarily with her beloved Pinkers, as well as maar baie harmonieuse gebruik van kleur en only in the last quarter of his life. In the case of to the other Pinker and Hodgins collectors who komposisie. Elke werk vertel ’n storie, dikwels Pinker and Hodgins, that situation has changed lent us their works. I have come to realise that ’n baie komplekse een wat meer vrae vra as immensely in recent years with works becoming Pinker’s works are not only scarce, but deeply antwoord. Die herhalende gebruik van sekere highly collectible and prices achieved on auction treasured by the people fortunate enough to own simbole (soos die vorige landsvlag en die protea) often exceeding the R1 million mark. Hopefully, them. Thank you to our contributors for sharing en motiewe gee ’n aanduiding van sy spottende this exhibition will lead to a re-valuation of the their insight so generously, Deon Viljoen wrote kommentaar op die sosiale en politieke orde works of the Podlashucs. an elucidating piece on Pinker’s magnificently in Suid Afrika. Die werke is altyd weldeurdag, It is interesting to note that Pinker, Hodgins and complex Marinetti’, Neil Dundas shared his beredeneerd en tegnies fyn uitgewerk, anders as Podlashuc were all involved in art education and deep understanding and admiration for Hodgins die meer spontane aanslag wat ek by Hodgins studied in London in the early 1950s. Presenting in a thought-provoking essay and Hayden Proud ondervind. their works together might enable us to recognize shared with us key recollections and insights, some common trends and subject matter and having been a close friend and admirer of the Die werke van Alexander Podlashuc, kom minder Podlashucs for many years. subtiel as die van Pinker en Hodgins voor. Kleur better understand the 40-year period in which en komposisie word met dramatiese effek gebruik, they were most productive, i.e 1960 – early Lastly, a heartfelt thanks to the wonderful soms op ’n wyse wat die kyker eerder konfronteer 2000s. Welgemeend Art Month project committee for their passion and dedication in making this as naderlok. Hy gebruik baie simbole en To spice things up a bit, we have included a few a memorable and sustainable annual event. ongewone vertrekspunte om sy boodskap effektief works by contemporary satirical artists, Brett Without Lizelle, Helena, Hanneli, Margaret, en interessant oor te dra, meestal met ‘n baie Murray and Richard Mudariki, which should Hendrik, Maria, Marysia, Tanja, Karen, Bina, satiriese ondertoon. Sy gebruik van die ridder, prove that the satirical tradition in South Africa is Mia, Matthew, Faye, Strauss & Co, Delaire Graff, sirkus, mallemeulens en diere om ’n subversiewe alive and kicking! Everard Read and the Friends of Welgemeend we boodskap oor te dra, geniet ek baie. Predikante en In line with our tradition of highlighting the works would be listening to the wind in August, rather priesters is ook gereeld onder skoot, enigeen wat of underrated or forgotten artists, we have also than painting with paintings! teenoor ander uit ’n gewaande posisie van gesag included a selection of evocative sculptures by optree, ’n teiken vir bespotting. Peter Haden. Frank Kilbourn Marianne Podlashuc, daarenteen, lewer sterk To enjoy art is to share art. This exhibition is the sosiale kommentaar op ’n baie meer direkte manier result of a happy collaboration between artists, met die klem wat op ironie eerder as sarkasme val. their families, galleries and collectors. It was such Vision (detail) See page 27 7 8 SATIRE AND IRONY were grist to the mill for this painter ...

Robert Hodgins loved words nearly as much as I wish I thought what jolly fun. Many of these “characters” he had encountered paintings, and using them with wit and intelligence Overleaf, Hodgins wrote his own response to the as the child of a “working woman,” who never was as much part of his practice as the action of earlier writing: knew his father, often went barefoot in wet and painting. He was a determinedly figurative painter, cold London of the Depression years, who was largely because he wanted his viewers to recognise My problem is that more and more sent out to work and taken out of school at just his ideas of life in the world approximating a stage I like the human race ... to draw. fourteen. Hardship was part of his young life and with a series of performances in which we all are Problems of an even More Elderly Man the experiences of selling newspapers in Soho the stars. In almost every case, the title of a painting Robert Hodgins, 2002 between the wars, shipping out to South Africa was extremely significant to him and would colour Hodgins was amused, irritated, angered, intrigued, thanks to a great uncle who lived in Cape Town’s the viewer’s perception of his subject, or be so very disappointed and entertained by the human dockland, then going to war, and working hard bland as to further demand of us that the viewer condition in almost equal measures and dealt with to gain an education in the harsh years which that she or he should re-evaluate the subject figure his responses to life in the world around him by followed in post war London, all informed the of the painting. drawing and painting the sorts of iconic figures artist’s view of the world as a stage and humans as His discipline, technical control of materials and who people his views of humanity. His suspicion of players on that stage. colour are evidenced in his execution of paint on self-inflated puffery in persons of supposedly high “I have both a gimlet eye, as well as a critical canvas, but his views on “The Human Race” are status became a sort of signature. reviewer’s training” Hodgins once said to me. He full of satire and irony, and made as clear as what Ignoble nobility, venal popes, untrustworthy used a cheeky amusement at the antics of people he often termed his “characters” by the captions clergymen, men in uniforms or formal suits of with high standing in society, but also a sort of for their settings on canvas. Hodgins made it clear importance, disguised somehow by their clothing shocked horror of them, coloured with sympathy, that he viewed himself along with all of these to compensate for their low morals, vicious in his depictions of his archetypes in his works. characters, as wearing disguises and masks in demeanour, criminal intent, leering manners or lack Your Friendly Garage Hand seems none too order to make ourselves appear we wished to in of compassion, became the order of the day for the friendly and satirically named. The texts in the the eyes of others. painter. Yet not all was cynicism and condemnation. painting shown as incomplete words, reveal the In the bound book of graphics titled The Human He regarded ladies of ill repute, men in loud suits, artist’s feelings about this character. Services is cut Race (produced as an artist’s book in a limited bewildered ex-boxers struggling with the after off to read as vices, and repairs cut off to read as edition with The Artists’ Press and published by effects of being too often battered, all with a degree pairs, in the phrases depicted as “pairs done here” Goodman Gallery in 2002), the artist quoted the of understanding, humour, and fellow-feeling. and “vices day & night.” Combined with the image comic verse Wishes of an Elderly Man by the 20th He feels for the Man with a Bandaged Foot, as of what Hodgins would have called “a bruiser” Century English poet Sir Walter Raleigh (definitely he does for the dancing woman in Performance, leaves us in no doubt as to the nature of the fellow NOT the Elizabethan, dear boy! ... he would Artist and Audience. They are injured physically or with a spanner in his hand! exclaim). The rhyme from 1923 amused him: in their pride, for the entertainment of others. The Men in Bunks depicts men numbered as would I wish I loved the human race; boxer would seem to have larger issues than just be the case with prisoners, or men in military I wish I loved its silly face; his foot and the rather ironically, politely-named forces, but the interrelations of these particular I wish I liked the way it walks; “artist and audience” are clearly a stripper and her men could be a little more suggestive. Down in I wish I liked the way it talks; gawkers. A ”little” man is writ large in his small and the Valley is a markedly ironic title for a powerful And when I’m introduced to one his apparently unimportant, small office. painting, clearly not showing what the word 9

Valley evokes - green and open space - but rather Robert Hodgins could be cynical, ironic, angry, an aging showgirl in You Want Voluptuous ...? I do a dingy, industrial place. Look again at Figures even bitter in satire at times, such as aiming at Good Voluptuous. This exhibition offers examples on a Beach – this blandly titled, large series of monarchs in a work like The King and Queen of his wicked sense of humour as well as his ability canvases reveal contested, separated spaces with of Spain. Still, he enjoyed just as much being to parody the devious and pretentious. imposing figures either in confrontation or rather ironically amused by deflated power as in the Neil Dundas, Senior Curator at Goodman Gallery more intimate relation to one another, which painting An Early Ubu, or a melancholy humour at Johannesburg, July, 2019 require of the viewer to guess at the notion behind this caption, and wonder at a beach scene with no sea visible. Made at a time when controversies still raged in the “new” South Africa, there are serious issues about access to beaches and more humorously, nude beaches in Cape Town, which interested Hodgins at the time he was preparing works for the Cape exhibition where this work was shown. The large triptych Night of the Awards, Hodgins made as a riposte, partly serious and partly humorous, to a challenge in an article by Kendell Geers. The inscription on the reverse of the work demonstrates this, but the work also has a satirical point to make about the artist’s thoughts on awards in the arts. Hodgins said of this work at a walkabout he gave in 1998: “One winner at the Oscars, the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Young Artist of the Year Awards, or an annual Music Awards night, cannot truly represent and acknowledge the breadth of the culture which gave rise to them, the wealth of talent giving judges a difficult choice, the endeavours of that year’s artists in whichever field it is, or the disappointment of those who did not win, but had nonetheless given of their hearts, minds and souls in making their works worthy of contention.”

Man with a Bandaged Foot See page 28 10 Alexander Podlashuc (1930-2009)

Alexander Podlashuc, who died at the age of 79 in of the parlous state of war-torn Poland and the After the completion of his studies, Pod remained Cape Town in 2009, was a highly gifted, forthright suffering that he witnessed there in his student a while in London where he briefly worked as and smouldering personality who was known travels on the Continent. London was also mired a cartoonist for Punch Magazine. Moving in to his family, friends, students and associates in post-war austerity, but it was here that he influential circles as a portrait painter, his sitters by the simple, somewhat blunt contraction of encountered a stellar range some of the greatest included the famous military strategist Basil his surname - as ‘Pod’. The family name was of talents in modern British art as his teachers. Liddle-Hart (1895-1970), the writer Arthur Koestler Ukrainian origin. Pod’s father Charles Podlashuc Over four years he was taught by Keith Vaughan (1905-1983), and the chief British prosecutor at had first arrived in South Africa as a child sent (1912-1977), Gertrude Hermes (1901-1983), Nuremberg trials, Sir Hartley Shawcross (1902- from Russia to join his sister in Pretoria. He was Victor Pasmore (1908-1998)), William Roberts 2003). He later moved to Amsterdam where he fluent in Russian, and became equally so in (1895-1980), Mervyn Peake (1911-1968) and worked briefly in the printing and publishing both English and Afrikaans. Charles qualified as Paul Hogarth (1917-2001). Broadly and very field, returning to South Africa in 1954 to take a lawyer and subsequently became Inspector of simply put, this diverse group of artists made two up a job as a graphic artist on the Pretoria News. Schools in the-then Transvaal. Somehow, Charles major impressions on the young Pod’s aesthetic In 1955 he settled in Bloemfontein, which was Podlashuc always kept the company of a number sensibilities. then the epicentre of the magazine publishing of artists in Pretoria. In the 1930s, for example, he Generally, Hogarth, Hermes and Peake were industry. It was here that he met and married assisted the young Walter Battiss in getting his first superbly skilled in drawing, illustration, caricature his Dutch-born wife Marianne in 1957 with job as an art teacher. Pod often used to recount and graphic techniques whereas Roberts, Vaughan whom he had an enduring artistic partnership his early memories of his father Charles’ regular and, to a lesser degree, the early, pre-abstract until her death in 2004. Together with Renee le chess games with the painter Frans Oerder (1867- Pasmore, defined and simplified form, especially Roux, Frans Claerhout, Eben van der Merwe and 1944) in a room in the bell tower of the Pretoria the human figure in semi-mechanical terms. This Marianne Podlashuc, Pod was the ‘driving force’ Town Hall.1 they achieved through the faceting, quasi-cubist and leading member of the Bloemfontein Group, At the age of 16, Pod enrolled at the Michaelis lens of what came to be known as British Vorticism. which he helped to establish in 1958. School of Fine Art in Cape Town. Here, his Derived in part from the dynamism and strident Esmé Berman recognised the strong influence youthful disrespect and prankish lampooning manifestoes of Italian Futurism (itself a variant of of British modernism in Pod’s work when she of his artistically conservative mentors Professor Cubism), Vorticism was the particular creation of described him as ‘a figurative painter of social- Edward Roworth (1880-1964) and Melvin Roberts and his famous associate Percy Wyndham realist inclinations’, whose ‘dry linear technique Simmers (1907-1992) aroused the former’s Lewis (1882-1957). It was for their work that Pod is related to a number English artists of similar considerable ire.2 Expelled from Michaelis, he was to have a life-long admiration. Pod’s late oil intention’.4 His work, she added, is ‘saved from briefly sought refuge at the Continental School of painting Cattle Auction in Leeuwaarden (1992), purely illustrational effect by the sensitivity of Art under the painter Maurice van Essche (1906- with its planar forms and clashing green and red drawing and the sympathy with which he presents 1977), with whose modernist sensibilities he felt a complementaries, demonstrates the persistence of his images’.5 There is always a strong interplay greater sympathy. the influence of Roberts’ and Lewis’s graphic and between Pod’s painting and his printmaking. His In 1948, Pod was accepted as a student at the quasi-satirical imagery. It has been said that for painting displays certain graphic qualities, while Central School of Art in London. This, in many Wyndham Lewis that ‘the function of art, as for his black and white prints convey something of ways, proved to be his most formative educational satire, is to depict reality’, and so it became also the seething surreality, ‘colour’ and and varied experience, as much as the emotional impact for Pod.3 expression of line seen in his larger paintings. 11

This is especially evident in his series of linocuts 1. Author’s recollection from personal conversations with 3. See Geoffrey Wagner. 1954. ‘Wyndham Lewis and the entitled The Passion of Judas Iscariot, on which he Alexander Podla shuc, Vorticist Aesthetic’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art 2. Author’s recollection from conversations with Alexander Criticism, Vol. 13, No. 1 (September), p.1. worked intermittently between 1973 and 1977. Podlashuc. The reported offence that led to his expulsion was 4. Esmé Berman. 1983. Art and Artists of South Africa. A.A. Pod left an indelible impression on generations of his creation of a studio still life which poked fun at Simmers’ Balkema, Cape Town and Rotterdam. pp. 336-337. derivative, sentimental and subjective notions of what he 5. Berman. 1983. students at the Port Elizabeth Technikon School used to repeatedly refer to as ‘true beauty’ in art. 6. Two novels entitled The Elastic Man and Breakfast with of Art and Design, were he assumed a teaching Wolves were completed by 2009. They remain unpublished. position as head of the graphic department in 1964. He was later appointed as Head of Department. He retired to live in Cape Town together with Marianne Podlashuc in 1990, after which they continued to mount many joint exhibitions of their work. In the few years prior to his death from liver cancer, Pod turned to writing several novels which are populated by characters and caricatures as reflective of our human follies, flaws and foibles as those that appear in the topsy-turvy world of his painted and graphic images.6 Hayden Proud, Curator of Historical Art Iziko Museums of South Africa July 2019

Political Satire See page 34 12 Alexander and Marianne Podlashuc – a personal portrait

boiled men, Pod ended up as the College House the family insisted he return home and avoid mascot, getting roped into all the shenanigans they the draft. His only prospect was a job as court got up to. Things did not go smoothly for the young reporter and illustrator for The Friend Newspaper man and he was expelled from Michaelis. in Bloemfontein. He travelled with the high court The black sheep of the family, he headed for train as it made its rounds of the lesser districts London, making his way by working as a dish hearing capital cases. washer and day labourer and going to classes The overlap and bonhomie between prosecution at the Central School of Art. He thrived, it was and defence on the train, impressed upon him the the height of the jazz era, and he joined a swing class collusion of law. Watching capital crimes band that made its way by Bedford truck across being sentenced, sometimes six at time, followed Southern Europe to Cannes in 1951 to celebrate by the entire judicial cohort going out for a boozy Sydney Bechet’s wedding. Shortly thereafter, he lunch struck him. won a Socialist Art Competition, where the first One day he saw an advert for a room to rent in prize was a trip to Poland. The joke was lost on Bloemfontein and went to view it. It was in the him. He was profoundly disturbed by what he saw flat of a young Dutch woman, recently arrived in there. The ruin, the bitter human legacy of the war, Bloemfontein. She was an artist too. And he spoke the violence simmering just under the surface, the Dutch. Her name was Marianne Van Den Berg. crematoria dust of Auschwitz crushed any utopian dreams he may have had. He came back to England and worked for Punch magazine, doing portraits of many public figures of the time, Basil Liddel Hart, Arthur Koestler, Peter Ustinov, Clement Attlee, Aneurin Bevan and many others. The Liddell Harts took him in, and Alexander Podlashuc was born in Pretoria in 1930 some of his most cherished memories were of in a Russian emigrant family. His father Charles his conversations with Basil. Certainly, the very was an attorney and the general secretary for the pragmatic and technical military history he imbued South African Labour Party, a MP for his area and there, filled the void left by romantic socialism. inspector of schools. Afrikaans was the dominant Perhaps too much so. When Malcolm Muggeridge language in Pretoria at the time, and although took over Punch magazine in 1953, he observed, Pod went to Pretoria Boys High, Afrikaans was his “Pod is not funny”, and fired him. preferred tongue. Pod took off for Amsterdam, getting a job with Perhaps due to his dad’s position, he matriculated Lilliput animation studio making cartoons. early and enrolled at UCT’s Michaelis Art School Unfortunately his European sojourn coincided at 15. It was 1946 and the men were coming back with his eligibility for national service in the British from the war. As a little chap amongst all these hard army. As his older brother was killed in WW2, 13

Marianne Podlashuc neé Van Den Berg, was born in Delft in 1932. Her parents were Dutch Communists who had met at the Socialist International of 1926. Her father, Ben was a skilled worker, and shop-steward in the Dutch Metal Workers Union, her mother Amalie, was a librarian. After the humiliatingly swift capitulation of the dutch military in WW2, Ben was drawn into an underground cohort and was hardly ever seen. The war dominated Marianne’s early life, she learnt to shoot and eat cats. The terror and the dreadful hunger took its toll. At the close of the war, her mother, Amalie, had TB and weighed only 32 kgs. Her only hope, a Canadian red cross medic advised, was to go somewhere dry and hot, like Argentina, Africa or Australia. And so, in 1947, Marianne’s family set off for Australia, leaving her behind in Rotterdam studying art. They never made it, by the time they reached Cape Town, Amalie was too ill to continue and Ben, via the international ties of trade unions got work at the power station in Bloemfontein. And hot and dry it was. Marianne in time made a life for herself in arty, bohemian post war Rotterdam. She loved the world she was in, it was a time of new beginnings and optimism, and her work of the time is washed in this joyous light. The Korean War, so soon after WW2 ended this. The atomic armageddon of Hiroshima and Nagasaki convinced her parents that peace would not hold, and that a nuclear war was immanent between the US and USSR. Europe would again be the battleground, and they begged her to come to South Africa, at least for a while. And so, the joyous Marianne, landed in Bloemfontein in 1953. That it was a shock for her is an understatement. The racism, the starving, kwashiorkor riddled children, the poverty of the masses bludgeoned her. Her paintings moved from cheery light filled works to brutal social realism, causing Betsy Verwoed to spit at an opening, “waarom skilder sy die k——— altyd so treurig?” The Cold War deepened and she couldn’t afford to return to Europe, so she put a room in her flat up for rent. A young artist who spoke dutch answered. His name was Pod. They married and became core members of an artistic and creative circle that became known as the Bloemfontein Group… the rest you know. Professor Leo Podlashuc See page 60 Cape Town, July 2019 Girl Dancer Wanted 14 Stanley Pinker (1924-2012)

Born in South West Africa (today Namibia), Stanley colour, where one is warmed by the glow of an background, which would set the stage for the detail Pinker’s artistic lineage can be traced back to the orange sunset (Homestead at Sunset) and chilled by and characters that would come later. French Impressionists via his teacher, Maurice van the cold blue of a deep night (Vision). On his return An example of this distorted and flattened Essche, who had studied under Henri Matisse during to South Africa in 1964, Pinker found a new sense perspective can be seen in His and Hers or Decline a brief stay in the South of France in 1933. Van Essche of connection with the country beyond the limited and Fall which presents an allegorical take on the would later go on to establish the Continental School scope of Cape Town that had informed his youth. The post-colonial milieu. In a field of vivid orange set of Art in Cape Town where Pinker was his student landscape, he reflects, “provided me with the visual against a thin, pale blue sky, two figures dressed from 1947 to 1950. After this critical foundation, means to explore the ideas that were on my mind”. in the colonial finery of an era long gone sit idly as Pinker would spend the next decade abroad, living (Pinker and Stevenson, 2004:15). an absurdist drama featuring a pair of matching His between London and Nice, returning to South Africa After some years adrift, working as a freelance and Hers exercise bikes, a toppled Grecian column, only briefly for his first solo show in 1954. illustrator and giving private art lessons, Pinker’s a menacing snake in a chamber pot and a Hoopoe This time spent in Europe resulted in Pinker’s mentor, van Essche again reappeared in his life, and a Hamerkop plays out around them. sophisticated application of the tenets of modernism. offering him a job that would define not only his Brimming with symbolic imagery, the borders of The effortless nuance of his individual artistic future, but that of South African Art History. In 1969, Pinker’s canvasses proved unable to contain his language revealed in his paintings set him apart at van Essche’s invitation Pinker began lecturing part- subject matter which by the 1970’s begun to spill out from his contemporaries. Bringing the sensuous time at the Michaelis School of Art at UCT, where he onto the frames of the paintings themselves. gesture of French Impressionism together with the would remain until 1989, influencing the trajectory disassembled forms of Cubism and the frantic energy of an entire generation of artists. Perhaps one of the most definitive examples of this of Futurism, Pinker’s work nevertheless remained constructivist tendency is Now and Then which The profound sense of the history of painting that demonstrates Pinker at the apex of his satirical preoccupied with a “quiet, ongoing struggle about Pinker brought with him can be seen in a relatively identity” that was entirely his own. power. Using sculptural elements that interact with early work titled Fête Champêtre executed in the dense narrative that takes place on a painted From his roots in Windhoek to the cosmopolitan 1958. A re-interpretation of a High Renaissance reproduction of an old Ten Rand note bearing the centres of Europe, Pinker’s oeuvre represents painting by the Venetian artist Giorgione that hangs likeness of Jan van Riebeeck, the painting takes a moment between worlds, where European in the Louvre, Pinker’s version demonstrates an square aim at the cyclical nature of history, whilst style and African subject collide in an eclectic investigation into the formal qualities of pictorial appealing to the redemptive hope of a distant peace. marriage of structure and form. Rather than overtly space whilst grappling with Cézanne’s use of colour. illustrating the toxic politics that defined the time, As one of his personal favorites, Pinker would later Despite the textured nature of his criticism, Pinker Pinker instead relied on his “ingenious formal wit describe the work by saying that it revealed his own sat outside the dominant trope of “struggle art” that and dry, irreverent humour” to “playfully distill “rather shakey but enthusiastic version of Cézanne’s is often used to describe artists of his generation. the dilemmas, absurdities and ironies of the South theory” which could be seen throughout the Instead his legacy is timeless with the restless African condition”. (Proud in Pinker and Stevenson, painting. (Pinker and Stevenson, 2004:26). ambiguity of his symbols maintaining their currency in a country where the aftermath of the past endures. 2004:7). The principles of these core preoccupations with Notoriously shy, Pinker’s work presents a cryptic space and perspective would become a defining Matthew Partridge window into his theatrical mind with the canvas feature of Pinker’s later work, with him identifying Contemporary Art Specialist, Strauss & Co becoming the stage upon which his drama takes most strongly with the way in which the Cubists place. Deeply influenced by the landscape that handled the environmental setting of a painting. His and Hers or Decline and Fall (detail) surrounded him, there is a whimsical poetry in his For him, space was tactile and began with the See page 37 15 16

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ROBERT HODGINS The Black Suite (set of 5) all works inscribed with their titles, medium, ‘painted 1983’ and signed on the reverse oil on canvas 42,5 x 32 cm (each) 1 The Steambath Attendant EXHIBITION: 2 The Politician Art Conversations: A Tribute to Stephan Welz, 3 The Actor 05 August - 04 September 2016, Welgemeend, Cape Town 4 The Literary Critic Kilbourn Collection 5 The Confessional Priest 5 17

ROBERT HODGINS ROBERT HODGINS You want Voluptuous...? I do good Voluptuous Dialling Out signed in pencil l/r Hodgins ‘05 and numbered 1/1 The Golden Wall (detail) aquatint in colour see page 62 52 x 38 cm Kilbourn Collection Kilbourn Collection 18

ALEXANDER PODLASHUC “Pod loved ferris wheels and carousels, Dr Feelgood’s Big Wheel those kooky Heath-Robinson mechanical signed and dated 1990 apparatuses of public joy, that would for oil on canvas a moment take people away from their 100 x 140 cm private hells.” Podlashuc Collection Leo Podlashuc 19

ROBERT HODGINS “Hodgins liked to poke fun at people in King and Queen of Spain positions of power, showing up their Ubu- inscribed with the title, signed and dated 2003 like qualities. ‘The King of Spain, they say, is on the reverse run mad … and the Queen, no better.’ Their oil on canvas haughty demeanour notwithstanding, they 91 x 121 cm are but actors in a play.” Kilbourn Collection FK 20

“Employing the revolutionary manoeuvre made by Henri Matisse in L’Atelier Rouge (Red Studio) (1911), Hodgins uses a warm base colour to flatten his pictorial perspective, challenging the viewer’s perception of space. Moving through the warmer gradations of the spectrum, the painting presents a rose-tinted atmosphere full of glowing forms, described by radiating lines of cooler complimentary colours. Within the interior of this pink field, a lavender thunder cloud casts a gloomy red shadow over the corner of a table of fruit. Outside, visible through a window, a green and yellow mine dump looms. Below this view, floating in a pool of orange, lies a red rug, decorated with green horizontal stripes. Hinged to the upper left of the composition is a closed door, outlined in blue. While the title of the painting indicates the mise-en-scène, a more ominous association is carried by A Transvaal Still Life… As Hodgins confessed in a conversation with William Kentridge and Deborah Bell, the ‘violence I paint is always removed.” (Extract from Strauss & Co catalogue, May 2019)

ROBERT HODGINS A Transvaal Still Life (Thunder Cloud, Mine Dump, Vaguely Ethnic Rug ... ) signed, dated 2000 and inscribed with the title and the medium on the reverse oil on canvas 90 by 90cm Private Collection 21

“Your Friendly Garage Hand seems none too friendly and satirically named. The texts in the painting shown as incomplete words, reveal the artist’s feelings about this character. Services is cut off to read as vices, and repairs cut off to read as pairs, in the phrases depicted as “pairs done here” and “vices day & night.” Combined with the image of what Hodgins would have called “a bruiser” leaves us in no doubt as to the nature of the fellow with a spanner in his hand!” Neil Dundas

ROBERT HODGINS Your Friendly Garage Hand 1999 oil on canvas 90 x 120 cm Private Collection 22 In our time – Stanley Pinker in Graaff-Reinet (1980s)

Marinetti (e il suo tempo) in Graaff-Reinet – We are introduced to Marinetti in this very Futurist orchestra ready, composed of innumerable Marinetti (and his time) in Graaff-Reinet – is a climate of protest, anger, fear and uncertainty. new instruments. With wood and string and bell characteristic sleight of hand by the painterly But why Marinetti and why Graaff-Reinet? Pinker and wire we shall at last be able to reproduce magician, Stanley Pinker. On the surface this large explains: ‘I happened to be in Graaff-Reinet the sounds of the modern world’. [Daniel R. painting is a sensory extravaganza: there’s a whirr wandering around, making little pencil drawings, Wilson, ‘Rose Keen and the Futurists’, [blog] and a whizz in the air as a Catherine wheel, with and saw the verandah of a house with a swing Miraculous Agitations, 23 June 2015 [online] a pair of pink court shoes balancing on top, spins chair and bright sunlight setting up dramatic http://miraculousagitations.blogspot.co.uk] through the air; sparklers and Roman candles are contrasts between the glare and blue shadows. The British public was not amused, and the press lit and ready to go off. Shadows and sunlight play While there, the alliteration between Reinet and critical of the affronts to traditional music. Marinetti came to mind, and I recalled the famous across the whitewashed walls, while the empty Embracing the energy of modern city life, chair and garden bench wait invitingly to be filled photograph of the three Italian Futurists when they went to London in 1914’. [Stanley Pinker and Marinetti’s compatriot Russolo declared: ‘We by passersby. And then there is Marinetti – peeking break through this narrow circle of pure sounds out from behind a column – the controversial Michael Stevenson (2004), Stanley Pinker, Cape Town: Michael Stevenson, p. 74] and conquer the infinite variety of noise sounds and colourful Futurist painter and theorist who … the rolling shutters of shopfronts, the hubbub ‘ignited’ European art in the early decades of Pinker’s recollection of the three Italian Futurists of the crowds, the different noises of the railway the twentieth century. Connecting the leading in London in 1914 is significant. In June that stations, forges, spinning wheels, printing works, artist and his disruptive, revolutionary times with year Marinetti and two of his compatriots – Luigi electric factories, and underground railways. a seemingly peaceful and quiet rural outpost in Russolo and Ugo Piatti – visited London to present Nor should the absolutely new noises of modern South Africa certainly evokes curiosity. Pinker’s a series of ‘noise concerts’, performed on Piatti’s warfare be forgotten,’ he wrote in his Futurist theatrical scenario not only delights the eye, but Noise Intoners or Intonarumori at the Coliseum. manifesto, The art of noise, in 1913. teases the mind – and in the process destabilises Their music making was received with little preconceptions. This is a superlative example of enthusiasm, as were Marinetti’s earlier attempts Pinker’s distilled craft. to introduce his Futurist aesthetic to the British The painting was completed in the mid- to late art scene. ‘The anarchical extravagance of the 1980s, with South Africa in a state of siege. Futurists must deprive the movement of the sympathy of all reasonable men,’ a writer for The Throughout the 1980s, waves of violence swept STANLEY PINKER the country. ‘What happened in South Africa Times stated on 19 March 1912 in response to an during the years 1984 to 1987 was less than exhibition of Italian Futurist painters. In his Futurist Marinetti (e il suo tempo) in Graaff-Reinet a full-blown revolution, yet it had many of its manifesto, published in 1909, Marinetti declared circa 1980s characteristics, and the perversion of idealism into his opposition to everything that was traditional, signed the element of terror and virtue was among them,’ conventional and conservative – in other words, oil on canvas commented Allister Sparks, one of the country’s the status quo. He was anti the Catholic Church, 131 x 183 cm most robust and incisive political commentators anti traditional Italian food, anti Venice; he was LITERATURE: of the apartheid era. (Allister Sparks (1991) The pro-war and an early supporter of Italian Fascism. Stanley Pinker, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, mind of South Africa, the story of the Rise and Fall In November 1913 Marinetti had enthused to the November 2004, page 74 and 75 of Apartheid, London: Mandarin, p. 340) UK press: ‘In a few months, we shall have a full Private Collection 23 24 The ‘noises of modern warfare’ - far more ‘The Left still calls it the Great Unrest – a period Pinker’s compositional arrangement of his devastating than anybody could have imagined - between 1910 and the outbreak of the First World ‘pictorial noise and clutter’ in this painting turned out to be everything but the art of noise. War when workers, many organised for the first warrants our attention. Pinker sets up a counter A little over two months after the three Futurists time in unions, began to flex their industrial dynamic to the revolutionary forces represented were in London, Britain had declared war on muscle. This was an era of political radicalism, by Marinetti and to the main fireworks display Germany. of demands for women’s suffrage and for poverty with its inherent incendiary potential. On the Russolo and Piatti, co-inventors of the Noise relief. In continental Europe, and especially other end of the Karoo verandah we are alerted Intoners, named the orchestra instruments in Russia, the old autocratic order was in peril to potential energies of a wholly different nature, Buzzers, Exploders, Whistlers, Thunderers, from socialists, syndicalists, anarchists and represented by inter alia the yin yang symbol (in Murmurers, Gurglers, Rattlers, Cracklers and Bolshevists […] There were strikes and disputes the play of shadows on the plant pot) and the Roarers, all very similar to the names of fireworks. everywhere, from teachers and shopkeepers to presence of a flaming salamander above it. Yin bus drivers and the cotton mills. The most militant yang is a symbol for acceptance of universal Pinker explains: ‘The Futurists were anarchists in group were the coal miners who in 1914 were dualities, the salamander refers to a belief that some respects. As a reference to their stance and locked in a series of disputes with pit owners these lizard-like amphibians can withstand fire – volatile times in which the 1914 photograph was around the country. The Daily Telegraph reported in fact, could quench fire with its moist body. taken, there are explosions and fireworks scattered how 100,000 men were idle in Yorkshire and Will Marinetti’s Catherine wheel spin out of throughout the painting. A matchbox with three the price of coal had risen to 5s a ton.’ [Philip control into a destructive ball of fire, or could it stars is in the foreground, as is a Roman candle, Johnston, ‘Life on the eve of war: the workers be transformed into a yin yang duality? By giving which is about to explode; in the landscape a unite’, The Telegraph, 1 August 2014, accessed such prominence to the spinning Catherine wheel bomb and other fireworks, all ignited, are ready online, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/ – and the pair of women’s shoes balanced on to go off. As a reference to “tempo” in the title, a world-war-one/10990532/Life-on-the-eve-of- top - Pinker may be offering a dark reference to progression of postcard-size images of landscapes war-the-workers-unite.html]. the spiked wheel, the breaking wheel, on which running from left to right at the top of the painting the Christian martyr Catherine of Alexandria was reflects the times of day - dawn, sunrise, early Marinetti’s presence as an embodiment of tortured before being beheaded in 307AD. morning, continuing through into the night […]’ revolutionary change is meaningful when seen [Pinker and Stevenson 2004:74]. against the backdrop of an armed struggle for Out of little sketches and drawings Pinker made political and economic liberation in South Africa. as he wandered through a charming, established The expansive landscape below these “postcards” As Hayden Proud pointed out in 2004: ‘[Pinker’s] town in the centre of an ancient flood plain, – most likely based on the artist’s observations re-contextualised objects and subjects become noticing the ephemeral play of light and shadow of the land surrounding the town - is brooding, the dramatis personae of his art. Populating and on the façades of the modest nineteenth-century ominous, and suggestive of the atmosphere before animating the shallow stage of his format, they houses, the artist’s aesthetic contemplation is a thunderstorm. become suspended in a pictorial realm of studied turned to time, the time of day, the passing of time, The Futurists’ Intonarumori, even though it may whimsy, interlocking and fusing to become tradition, revolution and change, the potential have sounded like incomprehensible noise to potent metaphors. They become the players that for chaos - and a consideration, perhaps, of his music critics, echoed the unrest and disruption chronicle and perform his tragicomedies of the own ‘precarious position […] in a then-fractured, felt throughout Europe at the time – in fact, colonial, and indeed the post-colonial, condition isolated and dangerous land’. [Proud in Pinker even echoed events in the then Union of South […] Collectively, especially in his later works, and Stevenson 2004:10]. He sets alight thoughts Africa where labour unrest in 1913 and 1914 they create a peculiarly Pinkeresque pictorial about revolutionary actions and how they fit in led to violent crackdowns on protesters. In 1914 noise and clutter, a Dadaist circus orchestrated with – or oppose – ancient ideas of duality. He Britain was embroiled in unprecedented domestic by the artist.’ (Proud, in Pinker and Stevenson assembles on canvas a seemingly disparate cast upheaval. 2004: 9). of characters and concepts including Futurism, 25 alchemy, ancient Chinese philosophy, and the recollection of an Italian Renaissance artist, all set against the background of a brooding South African landscape. Pinker’s own Intonaromuri – the whirr and whizz of Catherine wheels, the snap, crackle and pop of sparklers and Roman candles – are suggestive of the revolutionary climate and political volatility in South Africa at the time. Pinker does not illustrate the political unrest and violence in South Africa by painting burning tyres, clenched fists or policemen with batons – the imagery that belongs to television news and press photography. Pinker’s juxtapositions of a series of signs and symbols are incisive explorations of who and what we are in the face of upheaval and disruption. This is the work of an artist at the height of his aesthetic exploration – both formally and philosophically. This painting is an incisive and meaningful exploration of our dilemmas in the face of disruption and upheaval. This painting is as relevant to our own time/s as it was to Pinker e il suo tempo in Sudafrica in the 1980s. Deon Viljoen July 2019

Marinetti (e il suo tempo) in Graaff-Reinet (detail) 26

ROBERT HODGINS A Cosy Covern in Suburbia LITERATURE: signed twice, dated 2000/2, inscribed with the Fraser, Sean (ed.) (2002) Robert Hodgins, title and medium on the reverse Tafelberg: Cape Town. Illustrated in colour oil on canvas on page 89. 90 by 120cm Private Collection 27

STANLEY PINKER Vision 1978 signed; inscribed with the artist’s name and title on the stretcher; South African National Gallery and Graham Fine Art’s Gallery labels adhered to the reverse oil on canvas 150 x 150 cm PROVENANCE: Purchased directly from the artist in the late 1990’s for a Private Collection Johannesburg; 2006 Private Collection Pretoria EXHIBITION: The Modern Palimpsest: Envisioning South African Modernity - South African Masters from 1953 onwards, Graham’s Fine Art Gallery, 29 May - 29 August 2008 A Selection from Stanley Pinker’s Work to Date, South African National Gallery, 20 July - 28 August 1983, Cape Town A Selection from Stanley Pinker’s Work to Date, King George IV Art Gallery, 23 May - 26 June 1983, Port Elizabeth LITERATURE: A Selection from Stanley Pinker’s Work to Date, King George VI Art Gallery, 23 May - 26 June 1983, Port Elizabeth, cat no. 33. A Selection from Stanley Pinker’s Work to Date, South African National Gallery, 20 July - 28 August 1983, Cape Town, cat no. 33. Kilbourn Collection 28

ROBERT HODGINS LITERATURE: Man with a Bandaged Foot Exhibition Catalogue: Emerging Markets Art, Number 8, 29 Inverness Terrace, signed and inscribed with the title London, W23JR and medium and dated 2007 Exhibition Catalogue: Robert Hodgins, oil on canvas Another Country....Another Time..., 90 x 120 cm London Solo Show of New Oils, September 2008, illustrated on p3 Kilbourn Collection 29

“In this enigmatic painting a small figure of a man, maybe a businessman, steps from the light into the dark, casting a huge shadow … hinting at the consequences of his actions …?” FK

ROBERT HODGINS Cruel Shadows signed, dated 1998/9, inscribed with artist’s name and title on the reverse oil on canvas 122 x 91,5 cm PROVENANCE: 34 FIne Art, Cape Town Kilbourn Collection 30

STANLEY PINKER “OH AHA is a multilayered work displaying all the wit, OH AHA .... intelligence, humour and sensuality that has made Stanley Pinker’s paintings so sought-after. signed and inscribed with the title (in the artist’s handmade and painted frame) The semantic word-play of the title conveys many meanings oil on canvas from ‘oh’ indicating surprise to ‘aha’ suggesting understanding, 102,5 x 154 cm agreement or achievement. Following the discovery of ‘aha’ Kilbourn Collection with the delight of ‘haha’ invokes both humour and the iconoclasm of the Dadaists.” (Extract Strauss & Co catalogue October 2014) 31

“I have tended to resist the idea that a painting should be a rectangle with a foreground, middleground and background. I am attracted to tall vertical and long horizontal formats, and over the years have often experimented with the assumptions and conventions of format and scale.” Stanley Pinker, 2004

STANLEY PINKER Night signed and inscribed on the reverse with the title and the artist’s name and address oil on canvas 151,5 x 92 cm EXHIBITED: São Paulo Biennale LITERATURE: Esmé Berman, Art and Artists of South Africa. 1996. p335, illustrated PROVENANCE: Strauss & Co, Cape Town. Lot 422, 15 March 2010 Die Kunskamer, Cape Town, 18 March 2010 Caro Wiese Collection 32

“… the work also has a satirical point to make about the artist’s thoughts on awards in the arts. Hodgins said of this work at a walkabout he gave in 1998: ‘One winner at the Oscars, the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Young Artist of the Year Awards, or an annual Music Awards night, cannot truly represent and acknowledge the breadth of the culture which gave rise to them, the wealth of talent giving judges a difficult choice, the endeavours of that year’s artists in whichever field it is, or the disappointment of those who did not win, but had nonetheless given of their hearts, minds and souls in making their works worthy of contention.’” Neil Dundas

ROBERT HODGINS Night of the Awards, triptych 1997/8 each panel signed, dated, inscribed with the title and order of display on the reverse; inscribed ‘Just as “Mr. W.H.” was the “onlie begetter” of Shakespeare’s sonnets, so Mr Kendall Geer [sic] is the “onlie begetter” of This triptych. He declares in public “Hodgins will never no a painting as big as “The Triple Gates of Hell at the Joubert Park Gallery”. He challenges. I accept. This is the result. With affection for K.G., Robert Hodgins, May 98.’ [sic] on a label on the reverse oil on canvas 198 x 444 cm Private Collection 33 34

ALEXANDER PODLASHUC ALEXANDER PODLASHUC Political Satire Carousel with Skull signed and dated 1994 signed and dated 97 oil on canvas oil on canvas 74,5 x 100 cm 72 x 67 cm Kilbourn Collection EXHIBITION: Is Collecting an Art / Is Versameling van Kuns ‘n Kuns?, 04 - 24 October 2014, Welgemeend, Cape Town Kilbourn Collection 35

ROBERT HODGINS STANLEY PINKER Boereseun in die Karoo Homestead at Sunset 2007/8 signed; Graham’s Fine Art Gallery label oil on canvas adhered to the reverse 60 x 60 cm oil on canvas Private Collection 96,5 x 75 cm PROVENANCE: Graham’s Fine Art Gallery Kilbourn Collection 36

ALEXANDER PODLASHUC “For Pod, religion was a metaphor for politics. For The Pope is Dead. Long Live the Pope him the structure – of domination – endures, despite signed and dated 1991 seemingly profound change. The changes taking place in oil on canvas 1990 in South Africa were for him typical of this. Here 100 x 139 cm we see a series of white people in a row of telephone booths sharing the news of change: The alarmed cleric Podlashuc Collection (incumbent state bureaucrat), the suspicious man peering furtively at the future and the cheery lady calling abroad, while her son holds their sharp fanged hounds close…” Leo Podlashuc 37

STANLEY PINKER “The couple is an anachronism, awkwardly and uncomfortably His and Hers or Decline and Fall situated in a hostile landscape. They are relics from another oil on canvas era, much like the fallen Grecian column, and the prospect of 94 x 147 cm their using the contemporary His and Hers exercise bikes seems most improbable. They are both dressed in mad and impractical LITERATURE: white Victorian outfits; he wears a pith helmet and carries a Stanley Pinker, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, felt-covered water bottle, she wears a boater hat and holds a November 2004, page 80 parasol. … He – a case of the blind leading the blind, She – a Private Collection relic, a fossil …” (extract page 80) 38

“Ignoble nobility, venal popes, untrustworthy clergymen, men in uniforms or formal suits of importance, disguised somehow by their clothing to compensate for their low morals, vicious demeanour, criminal intent, leering manners or lack of compassion, became the order of the day for the painter.” Neil Dundas

ROBERT HODGINS Figure in Peasant Interior 2004 oil on canvas 90 x 90 cm Private Collection 39

“Purity, sanctity, hypocrisy, lies, malevolence, and evil were for Pod the stepping stones of religion and politics. Here the virgin birth is called into question, and with it, all the myths of purity underpinning religion, race and history.” Leo Podlashuc

ALEXANDER PODLASHUC The Egg Lady signed and dated 1986 oil on canvas 118 x 100 cm Podlashuc Collection 40

ROBERT HODGINS ROBERT HODGINS Harlequin The Reverend The Golden Wall (detail) The Golden Wall (detail) see page 62 see page 62 Kilbourn Collection Kilbourn Collection 41

ROBERT HODGINS ALEXANDER PODLASHUC Performance, Artist and Audience The Confessional signed, and dated 2002 and inscribed with the title signed and dated 1992 on the reverse oil on canvas oil on canvas 44,5 x 60 cm 40 x 50 cm Podlashuc Collection Kilbourn Collection 42

“Pod was riveted by the grotesqueries of everyday life. Animals in their various forms were analogies for their owners. The sight of packs of snarling dogs dragging along the meek-eyed hired help filled him with mirth. It captured the contradictions of bourgeois suburbia – violence masquerading as love.” Leo Podlashuc

ALEXANDER PODLASHUC Dogwalker signed and dated 1997 oil on canvas 82 x 100 cm Podlashuc Collection 43

“On an autumn Sunday in Sydney, Pod was invited to a shrimp BBQ by an actress, her construction contractor husband – and their two rescue dogs. Given the state of universal misanthropy and suffering in the world, this complex family relationship made an impression on Pod. He always felt there was a message in it somewhere. As it turned out, the bigger dog, Oscar, had issues. The poor chap was totally neurotic, his deep psychological problems set off by pumpkins and washing machines. After numerous therapy sessions, the couple were advised by their pet psychologist that Oscar needed his own “pet”. And so, Rubin Jr joined the family. Not long after, Rubin Jr acquired his own pet, a well chewed soft toy teddy. It is not in the painting.” Leo Podlashuc

ALEXANDER PODLASHUC Sunday Afternoon signed and dated 2002 oil on canvas 95 x 71 cm Podlashuc Collection 44

ALEXANDER PODLASHUC “This was the first painting by Podlashuc that Lizelle and I Cattle in the Forest acquired. We were attracted by the composition of the work, the signed and dated 97 juxtapositioning of the electric pylons and cables to the grazing oil on canvas cattle, as well as the very sardonic title. On closer inspection we 38 x 67,5 cm noticed the glowing eyes of the cattle and realised that what we are taking for granted may have consequences beyond the obvious.” Kilbourn Collection FK 45

ALEXANDER PODLASHUC “Pod’s retort to PW Botha’s 1985 Rubicon speech was to Die Ware Rubicon re-work Sam Nzima’s 1976 image of Hector Pieterson being signed and dated 1994 carried by Mbuyisa Makhubu. The lost generation of 1976 he oil on canvas saw as a bridge too far, the repercussions of which he felt the 103 x 55 cm regime had failed to understand at all.” Podlashuc Collection Leo Podlashuc 46

In The Garden of Eden, Pinker provides the viewer with a pared down, Cubist-inspired Adam and Eve who lock eyes sharply above an abundance of sensuous floral forms. At first glance, this appears an idyllic scene, but the reference to the Garden of Eden locates the viewer in an uncomfortable position of dramatic irony; the awareness of a loss which is both imminent and irretrievable. An ambience poised between darkness and light, innocence and knowledge, is invoked by the starkly contrasting background colours. https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/19602/lot/391/

STANLEY PINKER The Garden of Eden signed oil on composite board 114,5 x 97 cm LITERATURE: H. Proud, Reflection on the Art of Stanley Pinker. Stanley Pinker (Cape Town, 2004) M Stevenson. Interview with Stanley Pinker. Stanley Pinker (Cape Town, 2004) Bonhams catalogue. 17/10/2012 PROVENANCE: From the collection of Stanley Uys. Political Journalist Bonhams, London, lot 391. 17 October 2012 Caro Wiese Collection 47

“This is a personal and idiosyncratic re-interpretation of a favourite painting by Giorgione: Pastoral concert, painted in 1508-1509 … At the time I was pre-occupied by Cézanne’s use of colour, and my rather shaky but enthusiastic version of his theory is to be seen throughout the painting.” Stanley Pinker, 2004

STANLEY PINKER Fête Champêtre signed oil on board 95 x 120 cm EXHIBITED: South African National Gallery, Cape Town. Stanley Pinker Exhibition. cat. no. 5. July 1983 King George VI Art Gallery, Port Elizabeth. A Selection from Stanley Pinker’s Works to Date. cat no. 5. 1983 LITERATURE: Michael Stevenson. Stanley Pinker, Cape Town. 2004, illustrated in colour on p 26. Caro Wiese Collection 48

“Pod loved to paint as play, as a way to think in more complex ways than the head can hold. Puns, irony and satire flowed from his pens and brushes. He was always twisting and turning images, toying with meaning and complexity. Passing the wax museum in Barcelona he was struck by the booth outside with an upside down man on a ladder. It stuck in his mind, and he perseverated this image in multiple ways, drawings, etchings, water colours, oils. He couldn’t shake the image for years, and kept returning to it, like a compulsive riddle whose solution always just eluded him. Here the Knight stands casually at the kiosk window, defying gravity, a myriad of men descending towards him from above.” Leo Podlashuc

ALEXANDER PODLASHUC Knight at the Wax Museum signed and dated 1992 oil on canvas 99 x 138 cm Podlashuc Collection 49

“Pod was fascinated and horrified by the ease in which people could be dominated and subjugated despite their best efforts to resist. From settler-colonisation to Auschwitz, Beirut to Iraq, Myanmar to Soweto, he saw a continual process of sustained violence and murder underpinning modernity that somehow proceeded unchecked and unjudged. One of the keys to this he felt lay in how Trust and Faith in Authority are conscripted to fill the abattoir. Many of his images play on this tension: here we have docile, possibly even proud cows, being taken to slaughter, following faithfully the jaundice-eyed farmer across a field of blood. Structural power is never to be trusted.” Leo Podlashuc

ALEXANDER PODLASHUC Cattle Auction in Leeuwaarden 1992 signed and dated 1986 oil on canvas 100 x 120 cm Podlashuc Collection 50

STANLEY PINKER STANLEY PINKER The Chameleon Oh! signed signed and inscribed with the title and the oil on canvas artist’s address 49 x 32 cm oil on board PROVENANCE: 44,5 x 32 cm Stephan Welz & Co., Cape Town. Lot 322, 24-25 PROVENANCE: February 2009 Die Kunskamer. Cape Town, 30 September Deon Viljoen Fine Art, Cape Town, 27 February 2009 2013 Caro Wiese Collection Caro Wiese Collection 51

STANLEY PINKER STANLEY PINKER Suntan Lazing in the Sand Dunes signed signed oil on canvas oil on canvas 91,5 x 60,5 cm 59,5 x 91 cm PROVENANCE: PROVENANCE: Stephan Welz & Co., lot 630, 20 October 2009 Strauss & Co, Cape Town, Lot 253. 11 October 2010 Die Kunskamer, Cape Town, 23 October 2009 Caro Wiese Collection Caro Wiese Collection 52

ROBERT HODGINS “Down in the Valley is a markedly ironic title Down in the Valley for a powerful painting, clearly not showing 2004 what the word Valley evokes – green and open oil and charcoal on canvas space – but rather a dingy, industrial place.” 90 x 120 cm Neil Dundas Private Collection 53

STANLEY PINKER This elegant large scale work, is inspired by a T.S. Sweeney among the Nightingales Eliot poem of the same name. In the poem, two ladies signed and inscribed with the title try to seduce Sweeney (who is obsessed with wine pastel and women), while drinking in a pub, ignorant of a 121 x 170,5 cm plot against his life. His life is devoted to hedonistic pleasures and violence. Pinker captures the essence PROVENANCE: of Sweeney and depicts him in a modern nightclub Die Kunskamer, Cape Town environment, living it up, oblivious to all threats. Caro Wiese Collection FK 54

ROBERT HODGINS Frightened by Bright Colour 2003 oil on canvas 90 x 120 cm Private Collection 55

ALEXANDER PODLASHUC This work is a satirical interpretation Construction Site, Kloof Street, 1999 of the early construction phase of signed and dated 2000; inscribed with the the Lifestyle Centre in Kloof Street, title on the reverse Gardens. The steel reinforcements oil on canvas seem to have a crayfish-like life of 84 x 99 cm their own, trying to crawl out of the construction pit. Kilbourn Collection FK 56

STANLEY PINKER Last Waltz Tee-Dum Tee-Dum signed; inscribed with the artist’s name and title on the stretcher on the reverse oil on canvas 96,5 x 74,5 cm PROVENANCE: Graham’s Fine Art Gallery EXHIBITION: Is Collecting an Art / Is Versameling van Kuns ‘n Kuns?, 04 - 24 October 2014, Welgemeend, Cape Town Kilbourn Collection 57

STANLEY PINKER Now and Then signed oil on canvas 200 x 50 cm PROVENANCE: Louis Schachat Collection LITERATURE: Stanley Pinker, published by Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, Nov 2004, ill p. 78. Kilbourn Collection 58

ROBERT HODGINS Figures on a Beach; five panels 2008 oil on canvas 390 x 90 cm Private Collection 59

“Look again at Figures on a Beach – this blandly Made at a time when controversies still titled, large series of canvases reveal contested, raged in the “new” South Africa, there are separated spaces with imposing figures either in serious issues about access to beaches and confrontation or rather more intimate relation more humorously, nude beaches in Cape to one another, which require of the viewer to Town, which interested Hodgins at the guess at the notion behind this caption, and time he was preparing works for the Cape wonder at a beach scene with no sea visible. exhibition where this work was shown.” Neil Dundas 60

“The 1976 student protests in Soweto were momentous for Marianne. The deepening hegemo- nic curtailment of education for the majority of the population angered her immensely. Here she seeks to reveal an alternative world, where education is open and accessible. In this painting we see four African- Americans stepping out of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Educated, self-reliant, free citizens of a progressive world, not banished to be the “hewers of wood and drawers of water” by a racist-religious minority regime.” Leo Podlashuc

MARIANNE PODLASHUC MARIANNE PODLASHUC 1932 - 2006 1976 Girl Dancer Wanted circa 1978 signed and dated 1978 signed oil on canvas oil on canvas 90 x 120 cm 150 x 177 cm Podlashuc Collection Podlashuc Collection 61

RICHARD MUDARIKI ZIMBABWE 1985 - Kaapstad 2018 signed oil on canvas on board 145 x 140 cm Kilbourn Collection

“The artist was invited to be an adjudicator for the 2018 Cape Malay Choir Grand Finale in Belville. This was such a potent and enriching experience for the artist such that he decided to paint the experience. The Cape Malay festivities are an important part of the heritage of the city and have a deep history. This painting at the same time depicts the troubles in the city mayoral office, depicted here as the engine of the city.” Richard Mudariki 62

ROBERT HODGINS The Golden Wall, comprising twenty-five individual paintings all signed, dated 2001/2, inscribed with their respective titles and mediums on the reverse oil on canvas & oil on silkscreen on canvas 55 x 55 cm (each) PROVENANCE: The Vodacom Collection Kilbourn Collection 63 64

“The juggling and politicking by the old regime prior to the first democratic election captivated Pod. It was for him a desperate circus wherein the imperial cohort was finally revealed in their shabby underwear rehearsing frantically for a show that never would.” Leo Podlashuc

ALEXANDER PODLASHUC Die Sirkus van die Oranje, Blanje, Blou signed and dated 1994 oil on canvas 101 x 90 cm Podlashuc Collection 65

“During the 1960’s, the Group Areas Act was invoked to evict thousands of families across South Africa. The suburb of South End in Port Elizabeth was razed to the ground and its inhabitants scattered to the winds. Here a pass-for-white family look out over police evicting their neighbours.” Leo Podlashuc

ALEXANDER PODLASHUC Still Life with Wolves signed and dated 1991 oil on canvas 99 x 173 cm Podlashuc Collection 66

ROBERT HODGINS “Men in Bunks depicts men numbered as would The Men in Bunks 7, 11, 13 etc be the case with prisoners, or men in military 2008 forces, but the interrelations of these particular oil over charcoal men could be a little more suggestive.” 90 x 120 cm Neil Dundas Private Collection 67

ROBERT HODGINS The Men in Bunks 17, 23 etc 2008 oil over charcoal 62 x 92,5 cm Private Collection 68

ROBERT HODGINS The Men in Bunks 7,19,23 etc 2008 oil over charcoal 90 x 90 cm Private Collection 69

“The calvinist travels abroad and finds himself in the midst of lust and fecundity.” Leo Podlashuc

ALEXANDER PODLASHUC Bathers at St Sebastian signed and dated 1987 oil on canvas 72 x 90 cm Podlashuc Collection 70

ROBERT HODGINS ROBERT HODGINS Shall We Float Them Or Sink Them? Little Man in His Office signed, dated ‘04, inscribed with the title and signed, dated ‘98 and inscribed with the title numbered 1/1 in pencil in the margin watercolour monoprint in colours 37 x 49,5 cm Sheet: 77 x 57,5 cm Kilbourn Collection Kilbourn Collection 71

ROBERT HODGINS Twin Cigars signed and dated ‘99 with the title inscribed in the margin; edition 26/45; Caversham Press silkscreen Sheet: 70 x 70 cm Image: 63 x 65 cm Kilbourn Collection 72

ALEXANDER PODLASHUC ALEXANDER PODLASHUC Wax Museum 3 Wax Museum 2 oil on canvas signed and dated 1990 39 x 74 cm watercolour Podlashuc Collection 48 x 63 cm Podlashuc Collection 73

ALEXANDER PODLASHUC ROBERT HODGINS LITERATURE: Die Familie An Early Ubu Rory Doepel. (1997) Ubu: +/- signed and dated 1968 signed and dated ‘82 101: William Kentridge, Robert linocut tempera on pressed board Hodgins and Deborah Bell, 62 x 52 cm 28,5 x 42 cm Johannesburg: University of Podlashuc Collection PROVENANCE: Witwatersrand. Illustrated on Ivor and Caroline Powell page 50, figure 42. Kilbourn Collection 74

ALEXANDER PODLASHUC STANLEY PINKER Staying the Hand of Abraham Nude in the Studio signed and dated 1978 signed and dated ‘66 linocut charcoal and pastel on paper 35 x 46 cm 77 x 56 cm Podlashuc Collection PROVENANCE: Purchased in 2010 from the Estate of Jonathan Bradshaw The Collection of Jonathan Bradshaw Originally acquired directly from the artist Private Collection 75

RICHARD MUDARIKI ZIMBABWE 1985 - Scream for the Rhino signed and dated 2012 acrylic on canvas 67,6 x 47,5 cm PROVENANCE: Johans Borman Fine Art EXHIBITIONS: Richard Mudariki, My Reality, Johans Borman Fine Art, 02 - 23 June 2012. Mutara Wenguva, ‘Time Line’: Paintings by Richard Mudariki, presented by the Sanlam Art Collection at 11 Alice Lane, Sandton, Johannesburg, 25 July - 9 September 2017 and the Sanlam Art Gallery, Bellville, Cape Town, 22 September - 29 October 2017. LITERATURE: Richard Mudariki, My Reality, Johans Borman Fine Art, 02 - 23 June 2012, illustrated in colour. Mutara Wenguva, ‘Time Line’: Paintings by Richard Mudariki, presented by the Sanlam Art Collection at 11 Alice Lane, Sandton, Johannesburg, 25 July - 9 September 2017 and the Sanlam Art Gallery, Bellville, Cape Town, 22 September - 29 October 2017, illustrated in colour on page 56. Kilbourn Collection 76

RICHARD MUDARIKI ZIMBABWE 1985 - Head Sale 50% Off signed and dated 16 oil on canvas 89 x 73,5cm EXHIBITIONS: Richard Mudariki FREE TO CHOOSE, Johans Borman Fine Art, 20 August - 10 September 2016 LITERATURE: Richard Mudariki FREE TO CHOOSE 20 August - 10 September 2016, illustrated in colour on the back cover. Private Collection 77

RICHARD MUDARIKI ZIMBABWE 1985 - Letter to the President signed and dated 16 mixed media on board 100 x 74cm EXHIBITIONS: Richard Mudariki FREE TO CHOOSE, Johans Borman Fine Art, 20 August - 10 September 2016 LITERATURE: Richard Mudariki FREE TO CHOOSE 20 August - 10 September 2016, illustrated in colour on page 19. Private Collection 78

“The polished-bronze animal figures that feature prominently in his mature practice were first introduced in his 2006 exhibition, Sleep Sleep, which included squat interpretations of a donkey, gorilla and pig. In a 2017 interview, Murray spoke of how his “little short fat” sculptures are both autobiographical, quoting his stout physical form, and informed by the graphic simplicity of Asian vinyl toys.” Alexander Matthews Business Day, 29 March 2017

BRETT MURRAY 1961 - Gorilla 2005/2006, Edition 5 of 5 bronze 61 x 62 x 44 cm PROVENANCE: Joao Ferreira Art Gallery EXHIBITED: ‘Sleep, Sleep’, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, 2006 and Joao Ferreira Gallery, Cape Town, 2006

Kilbourn Collection Image Courtesy of John Hodgkiss 79

“Murray’s core gripe has been against corruption and the betrayal of the democratic vision for change. Scandal, however, was never his objective. Rather, intent, as I understand it, has been to capture in as singularly punchy a way as possible the root of discord or falsity. ” Ashraf Jamal, Business Day, April 24 2015

BRETT MURRAY 1961 - Capture 2016 Edition 2/6 bronze 61 x 47 x 54 cm

Everard Read Gallery Image courtesy of Mike Hall 80

BRETT MURRAY 1961 - Echo Chamber 2018 Edition 1/6 bronze 28 x 52 x 52 cm

Everard Read Gallery Image courtesy of Mike Hall 81

“Murray’s wordy wit, one that often gives his titles multiple ambiguous twists, hangs gently in the air around Hide. A highly polished bronze sculpture of the same title plays a delightful hide-’n-seek with pomp and monument. Hide could also mean escaping from or covering up follies of a fractured society — in the company of comedy where chubby frogs, elephants and other animals are monuments of a 2019 Animal Farm. Those with thin or thick skins tread wearily around them.” Melvyn Minnaar, Business Day, 14 February 2019

BRETT MURRAY 1961 - Hide 2018 Edition 1/6 bronze 61 x 47 x 54 cm cm

Everard Read Gallery Image courtesy of Mike Hall 82 Peter Haden 1939–1997

Almost Forgotten

Peter Haden was one of the prestigious group of artists mentored and promoted by gallerist Egon Guenther. Along with Edoardo Villa, Cecil Skotnes, Sydney Kumalo, Ezrom Legae, Hannes Harrs, Giuseppe Cattaneo and Cecily Sash, Haden benefited from Guenther’s tutelage and the exposure that high-profile exhibitions at Guenther’s Linksfield gallery afforded. Despite the high quality of his works, very little is known or has been written about Peter Haden. There is no reference to him in Frieda Harmsen’s Looking at South African Art (Van Schaik, 1985), in Grania Ogilvie’s The Dictionary of South African Painters and Sculptors (Everard Read, 1988) or in Elizabeth Rankin’s Images of Metal (Witwatersrand University Press, 1994). In Europe, where he exhibited regularly, he is hardly more well known. This may be in part because most of his works are in museums, public institutions and private collections, and very few of his sculptures have ever appeared on the secondary market or been sold at auction. Hopefully these exhibitions, hosted by Strauss & Co in South Africa, will raise awareness of Haden’s beautiful and often ‘quirky’ sculptures and establish his reputation as a unique and 2 gifted South African and International artist. Professor Gavin Watkins, Sydney, May 2019 83

Title Unknown (Reclining Figure) Mother and Child 10/10 2/10 bronze on marble base bronze on wooden base 15 x 52 x 20 cm h: 72 cm Private Collection Private Collection 84

Rider Sitting-foot 1/10 2/10 bronze on wooden base bronze on wooden base h: 15 cm h: 6,3 cm Private Collection Private Collection 85 Exhibiting in South Africa, 1968 to 1971, Richard Cheales wrote: With a ‘rain king’ and a ‘rain queen’ setting the theme in his small exhibition, Peter Haden stresses elongated vertical shapes in a section of his latest sculpture. In the rain ‘duo’ he gives a more dramatic interpretation of the small, chunky pieces that were such a feature in his last show, with monolithic shapes soaring upwards from the (in contrast) solid bases of the compositions. This style (with its suggestion of ‘roots’ in past, ancient times) has a strikingly decorative quality, faintly Egyptian, faintly primitive, the seated figures are conceived in a wholly abstract way – symbolic but, at the same time, aesthetically arresting. (’African Life in Haden’, The Star, 23 October 1969).

Rain Queen 5/10 bronze on wooden base h: 72,5 cm Private Collection

Rain King 7/10 bronze on wooden base h: 73 cm Private Collection 86

The Golden Calf 3/10 bronze on wooden base h: 26,5 cm Private Collection 87

Batman Standing Figure, Relief I 10/10 1/10 bronze on marble base bronze on wooden base h: 20,5 cm h: 44,6 cm Private Collection Private Collection 88

Title Unknown (Standing Figure with Hand on Hip) 2/10 bronze on wooden base h: 36,4 cm Private Collection

Title Unknown (Standing Figure) 1/10 bronze on wooden base h: 77 cm Private Collection 89 THE JEWEL OF THE CAPE WINELANDS Now inviting consignments We are currently inviting consignments for our forthcoming auctions. Enquiries: 021 683 6560 | [email protected] www.straussart.co.za

Robert Hodgins, J’accuse (detail) SOLD FOR R2 500 960 WORLD RECORD FOR THE ARTIST 92 Index

Peter Haden (1939-1997) 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88

Robert Hodgins (1920-2010) 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 26, 28, 29, 32, 35, 38, 40, 41, 52, 54, 58, 62, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 73

Richard Mudariki (1985-) 61, 75, 76, 77

Brett Murray (1961-) 78, 79, 80, 81

Stanley Pinker (1924-2012) 23, 27, 30, 31, 35, 37, 46, 47, 50, 51, 53, 56, 57, 74

Alexander Podlashuc (1930-2009) 18, 34, 36, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 48, 49, 55, 64, 65, 69, 72, 73, 74

Marianne Podlashuc (1932-2006) 60