Notes

Three women stand together in the street, their conversation serious and focused. The stylisation of their figures and the use of a reduced tonal palette create the appearance that the figures could be related, their clothes almost suggest a working uniform. Group Talking clearly depicts one of many scenes Gerard Sekoto could have observed on his travels to Dakar, Senegal, from 1966 to 1967. Greys, ochres, and blues flood the work creating a dynamic and dramatic mood, that possibly reflects the artist’s feelings in 1974. Sekoto went into self-imposed exile in Paris in 1947, where he worked as an artist and musician until his death in 1993. In 1974, Sekoto was caring for Marthe Baillon in their shared residence on the rue de Grands Augustines, in Paris. Sekoto and Baillon had been in a relationship for close to thirty years. She had first fallen unwell in 1967, while he was in Dakar exhibiting at the First Festival of Negro Arts by invitation of then president and famed poet Leopold Senghor, forcing Sekoto to return back to Paris. Marthe passed away in 1976. Sekoto is recognised as a pioneer of black South African modernism and the present lot is a strong example from this period in the artist’s life.¹

^1. Chloë Reid (2013) in Song for Sekoto: Gerard Sekoto 1913-2013, exhibition catalogue, Johannesburg: The Gerard Sekoto Foundation, page 118 to 119.

Provenance

Aspire Art Auctions, Johannesburg, 31 October 2016, lot 18.

Property of a Collector.