Notes

In her 1997 monograph of the artist Jean Welz, Elza Miles writes how Welz ‘quickly realised that art does not simply involve imitating nature. Every stroke and dab of a brush creates a mark – a symbol – and these marks in turn combine to suggest forms. For Welz, a form was not just the sum total of the individual marks (symbols), but a ‘poetic moment’. And it was the ‘poetic moment’ which he constantly stove to create’.¹ Miles also refers to the stylistic and thematic synergies between Welz and his close family friend Cecil Higgs – the two artists shared a studio at times – and equates their creative relationship to that of Picasso and Braque, with the pairs of artists stimulating, challenging and provoking each other in a cycle of mutual influence and cooperation, and this is particularly evident in the works by Welz and Higgs in lots 76 and 77.

1. Elza Miles (1997) The World of Jean Welz, CapeTown: Fernwood Press, page 9.

Provenance

The Jack Lewsen Collection.

Stephan Welz & Co, 31 May 2004, lot 495.

The Toy Mostert Collection.