Notes

What is it about magnolias that so captures the artistic imagination? Over the last 10 years at Strauss & Co, over 20 artworks depicting magnolias have appeared on auction by artists as diverse as Adriaan Boshoff, Irmin Henkel, Otto Klar, Maggie Laubser, Frans Order, and Vladimir Tretchikoff. Magnolias were Irma Stern’s favourite flowers and her numerous still lifes depicting magnolias and fruit or objects from her eclectic collections have achieved some of the highest prices ever paid for South African artworks.

Frans Oerder’s painting, Magnolias, was sold to the New York Graphic Society and reproductions of the work were among the Society’s most popular releases, being bought in record numbers, but the artist derived no financial benefit having sold the full rights to the publishers in perpetuity.

The large, waxy, fragrant creamy white or pink blooms depicted by artists are usually Magnolia grandiflora, from the large flowing tree native to the southern United States and particularly abundant in Mississippi, the ‘Magnolia State’. The flower is the harbinger of spring, appearing on the tree before the leaves, and depictions of the flowers in still lifes often reflect this. However, in the present lot, Alfred Krenz depicts a bunch of magnolias with their foliage, in a cobalt blue vase, and the bright whites, yellows and lime greens of the broad, rounded blooms catch the light and contrast strongly in both colour and shape with the deep green lanceolate leaves, creating a robust and memorable composition.