Notes

Not long after Edoardo Villa’s 59th birthday, in May 1974, the sculptor embarked on a series of monumental tubular steel sculptures, each painted in a striking bright colour. These five sculptures were Villa’s first experiments using tubular steel, which is today regarded as the definitive hallmark of a classic Villa sculptural form. Not only did these new sculptures signal the advent of a new medium, but they also shifted the landscape of South African contemporary sculpture, pushing the envelope of both imagination and scale way beyond that of any of Villa’s contemporaries.

The importance of this new sculptural direction was quickly recognised by Villa’s art dealer Linda Givon, who selected Orange Involvement (1974) to illustrate the dynamic triangular invitation card for the Edoardo Villa Sculpture 1974 exhibition, which opened at the Goodman Gallery in Hyde Park, Johannesburg, on 9 November 1974. Three mammoth vertical works and one horizontal work, all of tubular steel, dominated the exhibition. The five sculptures on the exhibition, ranging in height from 3,5 to 5,9 metres are listed below:

• Orange Involvement (1974), tubular steel (orange), height 4,85 m, purchased by Rand Afrikaans University (RAU)/University of Johannesburg (UJ).
• Composition in Light Blue (1974), tubular steel (light blue), height 3,5 m, purchased by the Medical Association, Pretoria.
• Conversation in Yellow (1974), tubular steel (yellow), height 5,9 m, purchased by the Rembrandt Art Collection, Stellenbosch.
• Mother & Child (1974), tubular steel (green), height 4,9m, purchased by a private collector Johannesburg/UK.
• One other sculpture, not part of the Goodman Gallery exhibition as it was only completed in early 1975, completed the group. It was titled in honour of Villa’s dear friend Monty Sack, an early champion of the sculptor and a visionary architect: Homage to an Architect (1975), tubular steel (dark blue), height 3,92 m, purchased by the Rembrandt Art Collection, Stellenbosch.

The sculptures are beautifully documented in an historic photograph of the big five taken in Villa’s garden in Kew, Johannesburg, in summer 1975.

The five sculptures were exhibited at the grand public opening of the Rand Afrikaans University in March 1976. As a result of great public interest and the huge success of the VILLA ’76 RAU open-air exhibition, the sculptor was awarded the coveted annual Afrox Metalart sculpture award in 1976. Mother & Child was sold a few years later to art dealer and collector Lesley Sacks, who in turn sold it to a private collector who exhibited the work in the grounds of his home in the UK. The work was shipped back to South Africa in 2013, and until recently, has been on exhibition at House Villa in Kew, Johannesburg. This work is the last of Edoardo Villa’s big five tubular steel sculptures still in private hands.

The Goodman Gallery invitation (1974), the VILLA ’76 RAU catalogue, the Afrox Metalart Edoardo Villa ’76 catalogue and a signed copy of Edoardo Villa Sculpture (1980), accompany the lot.

Provenance

Private Collection, Johannesburg/ United Kingdom.

Private Collection, Johannesburg.

Exhibited

Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, Edoardo Villa Sculpture 1974, 9 to 23 November 1974.

Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburg, VILLA ’76 RAU, March to June 1976, catalogue no. 18.

Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburg, Edoardo Villa Retrospective, May to November 1980, exhibition monograph page 174.

House Villa, Kew, Johannesburg 2014 to 2020.

Literature

Afrox Metalart (1976) Edoardo Villa ‘76, catalogue, Johannesburg: Afrox Public Relations Department,1976, illustrated on page 12.    

EP Engel (ed) (1980) Edoardo Villa Sculpture, South Africa: United Book Distributors, illustrated on the reverse side of dust jacket standing to the side of Confrontation and on page 174.

Karel Nel, Elizabeth Burroughs and Amalie von Maltitz (eds) (2005) Villa at 90, Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball with Shelf Publishing, illustrated on page 196.