Self-Portrait with Muse

Provenance

Acquired from the artist by the current owner in 1988.

Notes

“Through a sea of colours comes woman – as yet unformed – half spirit, half flesh. Tretchikoff is firmly persuaded that, as with the Muses of Greek mythology, women have inspired his better achievements.”¹

In the present lot, Tretchikoff presents not only his likeness but also a striking meditation on inspiration itself. Unlike the iconic self-portrait (1944-1950) that he used on so much of his publicity – where he confronts the viewer directly – here he turns away, his gaze fixed firmly on the canvas before him. His reflection is partially concealed on the easel, a quiet acknowledgment that what matters most is not the artist’s outer image, but the act of creation unfolding before his eyes.

Behind him rises the colossal face of a woman: the Muse. She is not a portrait of any one sitter, but an idealised amalgam, both personal and symbolic. For some, she recalls Lenka, the woman he met in wartime Java, whose encouragement spurred his decisive turn from commercial illustration to painting. Yet in the long arc of his Life, it was Natalie, his wife, who embodied this role most consistently – a companion, critic, and champion who infused his practice with intellectual and emotional ballast.

The paint handling is audacious. Pigment is squeezed and swept into whorls of red, blue, and green, engulfing both artist and muse in an almost elemental vortex. This painterly turbulence shocked many contemporary critics, who derided it as excess, even vulgarity. With hindsight, the vigorous brushwork recalls the impassioned surfaces of Vincent van Gogh – though Tretchikoff himself dismissed such comparisons. For him, the muse was not anguish but spectacle: colour and imagination given visible form.

Between the artist bent on his canvas and the Muse looming above, the present lot dramatises the precarious balance between discipline and inspiration. It is both manifesto and confession – an image of a man acknowledging that his art, his very identity, is inseparable from the muses who sustained him.

^1. Howard Timmins (1969) Tretchikoff, Cape Town: Howard Timmins.

Andrew Lamprecht, Curator of Historical Paintings and Sculpture at Iziko South African National Gallery and curator of the first major retrospective exhibition titled, Tretchikoff: The People’s Painter.