Important South African and International Art

Live Auction, 4 June 2018

Session Three
  • Alexis Preller; Self Portrait as an Old Man


Lot Estimate
ZAR 3 000 000 - 5 000 000

About this Item

South African 1911-1975
Self Portrait as an Old Man
signed and dated '50
oil on canvas
50,5 by 60,5cm excluding frame

Notes

‘Nothing in Preller means anything specific, you can’t fix the meaning, but it creates a penumbra of meaning that he pulls together in poetic ways.’ Karel Nel

It is quite uncanny how Alexis Preller in his Self-portrait as an Old Man of 1950, painted 25 years before his death in 1975, captures the thoughtful expression, grey hair and moustache of his older self with such remarkable acuity. This likeness is borne out in photographs taken of the artist during the last years of his life, particularly the one taken during the construction of the Mudif, illustrated here.

Alexis Preller rarely painted himself and, apart from Self-portrait as an Old Man, there are only two other known self-portraits by him. These include an early Self-portrait of 1940, in which Preller depicts himself alongside an easel, exhibited on his 1972 exhibition at the Pretoria Art Museum (catalogued as number 10) and another painting where the artist has painted himself in front of a very early version of his African heads series (no illustration found of this work). This self-portrait of 1950 also makes strong reference to Preller’s earlier painting, Symbols on a Beach (Hommage à Bosch) of 1949 painted just after his Seychellois period (1948–9).

In this 1950 self-portrait Preller presents two versions of his older self. In the first instance there is a portrait of the artist in a rather pensive mood looking down and beyond the picture plane. He modestly places himself right at the bottom of the painting, off centre and surrounded by a number of emblematic images which appear to be occupying his thoughts, his subconscious and imagination.

Preller portrays himself within a landscape with a very particular quality of evening light that casts soft shadows across the painting and reveals the deeply internalised nature of this self-portrait. The buildings included on the right of the picture plane are a quotation from the work of the Italian surrealist and mystical painter and writer, Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978). The desolate landscapes and abandoned temples in De Chirico’s paintings underline the inner dreamlike or symbolic world of Preller rather than being a depiction of the actual landscape.

In the second portrayal of himself the artist paints a full figure version of himself yet diminished and set back into the landscape. This figure clearly resembles the artist but in retrospect it also curiously evokes an impression of Einstein and is surrounded by the pages of a book strewn across the ground, significantly referencing the importance of books in Preller’s life and his use of them as a recurring leitmotif, most dramatically depicted in his Homage to Hieronymus Bosch of 1948, which Strauss & Co sold in October 2017.

Preller often returns to the cello and the strings of the instrument as a stylistic device in his paintings. In this instance a cello lies half buried behind the artist, its concealed strings transformed into the bars of a cage, often related to containment for Preller, which, in this instance contains a mango, another recurring symbol in Preller’s work.

Karel Nel and Marion Dixon

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