South African Art, Jewellery and Decorative Arts

Live Auction, 4 February 2013

Paintings Evening Sale

Sold for

ZAR 35 648
Lot 549
  • Cecil Skotnes; Cat


Lot Estimate
ZAR 8 000 - 10 000
Selling Price
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
ZAR 35 648

About this Item

South African 1926-2009
Cat
1960

signed in pencil in the margin and impressed with the Fred Schimmel Studio stamp

screenprint in colour
image size: 40,5 by 71,5cm

Literature

Frieda Harmsen (Ed.), Cecil Skotnes, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, 1996, page 84, figure 3.1, where a woodcut of the same subject is illustrated:

In Pippa Skotnes' monograph on her father's work titled At the Cutting Edge: Cecil Skotnes as Printmaker she talks about the origins of Cat, "The image I remember most clearly from my early childhood...was a large cat, roughly cut in wood and printed by hand...It was apparently a portrait of a friend's one-eyed cat which hunted for its dinner and gave its name to my own, more gentle pet, Kotchka."

Elza Miles, Polly Street: The Story of an Art Centre, The Ampersand Foundation, 2004, page 106, figure 125, where a woodcut of the same subject is illustrated:

There was lively motivation in the Art Centre. Durant Sihlali recalls that a casual drawing of a stalking cat by one of the students inspired Cecil Skotnes' woodcut Cat (1960).

View all Cecil Skotnes lots for sale in this auction


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