Notes

The brushstrokes in Landscape with Trees are executed in a distinctly early expressionist style. This speaks much to the milieu in which Wolf Kibel exercised his creativity. Though removed from the continent geographically, Kibel’s work shows a deep sympathy for his European counterparts. Chagall and Soutine are of particular collegiality. Kibel’s subject matter is ostensibly simple, a landscape reduced to the illustration of trees occupies the entire composition. Upon detailed inspection, there is a complexity that arises through the movement and palette of this work. There is a carefully balanced constructive tension present between instinctive sensualism and intellectual formal control. Landscape with Trees vibrates with inner energy, the pitch of which has been set and controlled by the artist’s deep intellect. The emotive element, however, manages to hold strong congruent to this.¹

^1. Neville Dubow (1968) Wolf Kibel: A Critical Assessment of His Work, Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, page 33.

Provenance

Graham's Fine Art Gallery, Johannesburg.

Private Collection. 

Exhibited

The National Gallery of South Africa, Cape Town, Wolf Kibel: 1903 - 1938 — A Memorial Exhibition, 1950, a work with the same title was exhibited.