Modern, Post-War and Contemporary Art
Online-Only Auction, 30 May - 13 June 2022
Watercolour: The Choreography of Chance and Control
About this Item
signed and dated 1986; inscribed with the title on the reverse; inscribed with the artist's name and the title 'Thursday Prayers' on the reverse of the paper
Notes
Upon completing his schooling in Pietersburg (now Polokwane), David Mogano left for Johannesburg and found a job in a hotel as a cook. Blessed with a natural ability to draw, he began to study art at the Polly Street Art Centre in 1959 under Cecil Skotnes and Sydney Khumalo.
He painted exclusively in the medium of watercolour and is best known for his detailed, naturalistic narratives of township life. The three watercolours on our current May 2022 Online auction (lots 31, 32 and 33) capture the minutiae of peri-urban life, with all the details of boys running, men on bicycles, groups of Methodist churchgoers in their distinctive red and white Sunday uniforms, and the smoky chimneys of Pimville in the Greater Soweto area, still unelectrified in the apartheid-era 1980s.
A large retrospective exhibition of works by David Mogano spanning a period of 25 years was held at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg in 1999.
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