Notes

Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity, signed by Joseph Wolpe, dated 2000.

This exceptional painting by one of South Africa’s most sought-after artists is made all the more rare by the fact that Wolf Kibel’s career was cut short in 1938 due to ill health. Like Pinker’s Castagniers, which sold for R105 830 at Strauss & Co’s October 2010 sale, this is a key work in South African art history and belongs in a major public or serious private collection.

Houses with Red Roofs evokes the paintings produced by Cézanne, Braque and Picasso in L’Estaque, in the south of France, which were to become the cornerstones of early Analytical Cubism. In these paintings, the landscape and houses are treated alike as flat planes to be articulated across the canvas, the better to emphasise the flatness of the picture plane and art’s independence from perceived reality.

While Kibel demonstrates his awareness of these proto-Cubist developments, his painting is infused with emotion that imbues the houses with life and conveys passion through the swirling movement of the trees. Such a seminal painting that so clearly demonstrates the impact of Modernism on South African art, re-confirms what connoisseurs know – that Wolf Kibel is a major artist.

Provenance

Freda Kibel, the artist's wife