Notes

Christo Coetzee produced a groundbreaking body of work in London, Paris and Japan in the mid-1950s, of which Painting Yellow is a prime example. When Spanish critic and theorist, Michel Tapié de Ceyleran first saw the work at the apartment of mutual friend, Anthony Denney, in London, he recommended that Coetzee contact one of the most prominent Japanese avant-garde groups of the time, the Gutai Art Association (1954-1972). In the United Kingdom, according to Stevenson and Viljoen (2001) Coetzee came into contact with a number of contemporary, if not avant-garde British artists with whose work he was very familiar: "Coetzee shared Graham Sutherland's fascination with the primordial and fantastical, and John Piper's romantic and lyrical themes. He also drew on Reg Butler's stripping down of traditional volumes of sculpture to lay bare the underlying structure or skeleton, and Barbara Hepworth's opening up of volumes to contrast void and solid, positive and negative space, exposing the inner nerves of her works like taut harp strings."¹ On the European continent, in turn, Coetzee was familiar with the work of such Italian avant-garde artists as Alberto Burri and Lucio Fontana. In fact, Coetzee held a two-person exhibition with Fontana at Galerie Stadler in Paris in 1959 before he left for Japan. In Paris he also quickly got to know the work of Jean Dubuffet, Jean Fautrier and Yves Klein. In addition, Tapies' theories of l'art informel and of un art autre had a great impact on Coetzee. Tapies was also closely involved with the Gutai group, visiting them regularly in the 1950s. He was thus in an ideal position to endorse Coetzee's "Japanese" period in terms of his own art theories. Few of Coetzee's European experiences, however, are documented in the literature, but its profound influence on his art is readily acknowledged. What is, however, mostly glossed over when it comes to the literature on Coetzee, is the period he spent in Japan amongst members of the Gutai. Literally translated, Gutai means the embodiment of the physical material of art making, and members thus revelled in such audacious acts as painting with their feet (Shiraga, Kazuo) or piercing the picture plane of paper canvases by running through them. (Murakami, Saburo) Coetzee adopted a similar playful and joyous approach when he made this work, which includes a number of painted, protruding ping pong balls attached to the surface.

1. Michael Stevenson and Deon Viljoen. (2001) Christo Coetzee: Paintings from London to Paris, 1954-1964, South Africa: Fernwood Press. Page 13.

Provenance

The Anthony Denney Collection, England

Literature

Michael Stevenson and Deon Viljoen. (2001) Christo Coetzee: Paintings from London to Paris, 1954 - 1964, South Africa: Fernwood Press. Illustrated in colour on page 35.