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Hodgins' Favourite Scheduled for Strauss & Co Auction
10 Mar 2015
This was Hodgins’ favourite painting. It was borrowed from the owner for Hodgins to enjoy and display in his home until his death when it was returned to the owner.
Lot 617 Robert Hodgins ‘The Porn King’ R500 000 – 700 000
The Porn King, an early Hodgins painting reliably thought to have been produced in the mid-1980s, comes with a remarkable if anecdotal commendation in its provenance. Discovering he was suffering from a terminal cancer, painter Robert Hodgins borrowed the work back from the person who had bought it from him. Citing The Porn King as one of his personal favourites among the several thousands of paintings he made over the decades, the artist said he wanted to be able to look at it until he died, at which time the work would be returned.
Coming up now at auction, it is not difficult to intuit just why Hodgins was thus umbilically attached to this portrait of slickened sleaze. The full face image of a thick-necked but impeccably groomed blond man, whose face seems to lurk somewhere behind the possibly detachable mask that is his physiognomy, The Porn King is both satirical and sinister in the range of near expressions that swim in and out of focus in the abstract play of paint where our reflexes of recognition want to find a human face. The Porn King is available and distant, he is sensual and calculating, never quite where the viewer wants to find some human clue to the apperception of a shared or critical humanity beyond the well-trained lines of hair on a carefully groomed presentation head.
Ghosting through the background is dirty wall, a palimpsest of graffiti painted over but not quite erased with names scratched into the plaster that hint of love and oranges … never specific, but undercutting the illusion of propriety that the Porn King seeks to project as does the single dirty knob of an ear affixed at right angles to the head.
Important South African & International Art, Decorative Arts & Jewellery
Monday 16 March 2015 Evening Sale
Venue: The Vineyard Hotel, Newlands, Cape Town
Preview: Friday 13 to Sunday 15 March 10am to 5pm
Walkabouts conducted by Stephan Welz and Emma Bedford: Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 March at 11:00am
For press enquiries please contact Bina Genovese bina@straussart.co.za / 021 683 6560 / 083 680 9944
2015 Press Releases
November
- 3 Nov 2015 A Woman of Substance
- 9 Nov 2015 Gold miner shines in bronze
- 9 Nov 2015 Top Ten, 9 November 2015
- 23 Nov 2015 Stephan Welz speaks on the Jewish contribution to cultural life in South Africa
October
- 5 Oct 2015 Property from the Rodwell House Collection
- 5 Oct 2015 Randlord's furniture appears on market 65 years later
- 13 Oct 2015 R2 600 000 for chest of drawers
- 13 Oct 2015 Top Ten, 12 October 2015
- 15 Oct 2015 Van Wouw Dagga Smoker won with ten cent raffle ticket among highlights at Strauss & Co's Johannesburg Auction on 9 November 2015
- 16 Oct 2015 Strauss Summer Auction headlined by rare and exemplary works by Preller, Stern, Kentridge, Pierneef and Van Wouw
September
- 3 Sep 2015 Strauss & Co launches new improved website
- 4 Sep 2015 Ten Cent raffle ticket wins half a million Rand artwork
- 10 Sep 2015 Rare Portrait of Childhood by Peter Clarke at Strauss Auction
- 15 Sep 2015 Strauss Spring Auction Set to Surprise and Delight
- 25 Sep 2015 Erik Laubscher: Toast of the Town
June
- 2 Jun 2015 A record price for & quot kitchen boy" painting
- 2 Jun 2015 Dolly commands millions
- 2 Jun 2015 Sculpture price soars to dizzy heights
May
- 16 May 2015 Alexander Calder - 'Spiral',
- 16 May 2015 Half a Century of Robert Hodgins at Strauss & Co
- 16 May 2015 Jane Alexander - 'Serviceman'
- 16 May 2015 Kees van Dongen - 'Dolly au collier d'argent'
- 16 May 2015 Walter Battiss - 'Untitled'
- 16 May 2015 William Kentridge - 'Shrouded Figure in a Landscape [Taking in the Landscape]'
- 20 May 2015 Modern and contemporary art steals the show at Strauss & Co's June sale
- 28 May 2015 Hello Dolly! Portrait of artist's daughter expected to fetch R4 million
- 30 May 2015 Athi-Patra Ruga - Dancing Figure
April
March
- 6 Mar 2015 Art with Global Appeal at Strauss Auction
- 6 Mar 2015 Kimberley Diamond Rush Brooch to benefit Save the Children Fund
- 6 Mar 2015 Pierneef Painting that Launched Cultural Movement Headlines Strauss Auction
- 6 Mar 2015 The Arch Flies Again
- 7 Mar 2015 Preller's Mapogga Wedding at Strauss & Co
- 9 Mar 2015 Harvey Collection Celebrates South African History
- 9 Mar 2015 Mapogga Blissful Nuptials at Strauss & Co Auction
- 9 Mar 2015 Top Notch Tretchi Shines at Strauss & Co Auction
- 10 Mar 2015 Artist and Son Reunited
- 10 Mar 2015 Hodgins' Favourite Scheduled for Strauss & Co Auction
- 11 Mar 2015 JH Pierneef - Master of the Medium
- 18 Mar 2015 Strauss & Co Top 10 Results for 16 March 2015 Auction
- 20 Mar 2015 Strauss & Co reaffirms its global supremacy in the South African art market
- 20 Mar 2015 Tutu sculpture sells for over R850 000 at Strauss & Co auction
February
- 3 Feb 2015 Chairman's Report, 2014
January
