Evening Sale

Live Virtual Auction, 16 September 2025

Evening Sale: Modern and Contemporary Art

Current Bid

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Lot 379
  • Karel Nel; Dish
  • Karel Nel; Dish
  • Karel Nel; Dish


Lot Estimate
ZAR 300 000 - 400 000
Current Bid
Starting at ZAR 250 000
Location
Cape Town
Delivery
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Condition Report
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About this Item

South African 1955-
Dish
2014-2015

signed, dated 2014-2015 and inscribed with the title on the reverse; inscribed with the artist’s name, the date, title and medium on an Art First label adhered to the reverse

pastel, metallic dust and dry pigment on bonded fibre fabric laid down on board
164 by 164cm excluding frame; 180,5 by 180 by 5cm including frame

Notes

Since 2004, Karel Nel has been the resident artist working with a team of the world’s foremost astronomers on COSMOS, one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken to map a two-degree field in the universe. Nel spends time with the COSMOS astronomical team viewing the infinite in observatories in remote sites around the world.

He has often commented to astronomers that "on returning home my own studio is my observatory, my place of close observation of my surroundings, the finite, the terrestrial and the
philosophical."

In the present lot, Nel draws an unusual bowl by the Dan in Liberia that stands poised in his studio, its cupped serrated surface emanating its own presence yet simultaneously alluding to the telescopic dishes that capture complex emanations as they point out into the universe

Provenance

Art First, London, 7 August 2016.

The Oliver Powell and Timely Investments Trust Collection.

Exhibited

Art First, London, Karel Nel: Observe, 8 October to 14 November 2015, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue on pages 24,25,36 and 37.

View all Karel Nel lots for sale in this auction