Notes

After phases working as a realist, symbolist and expressionist painter, Simon Stone, in the early 1990s, began developing a new lyrical and allegorical style that fused aspects of his previous periods. Informed by his explorations of spatial design and the layering of pictorial elements in earlier paintings, Stone began to segment and partition his compositions, as well as float pictures within pictures. This new "regnant style" was "fully revealed", writes the artist's biographer Lloyd Pollak, in the "dreamy serenity" of The Soldier who Lost his Rifle, an important work from 1999.¹ Produced three years after the artist's move from Johannesburg to Knysna, the composition is dominated by a central male figure, but additionally features a female nude and rural landscape - two key motifs from Stone's repertoire. The painting collapses details of Stone's biography (he was a military conscript in 1970), influences (Malcolm Morley, Robert Rauschenberg, Fra Angelico) and method (he often uses photographs, both his own and found sources) into an enigmatic statement.

^1. Lloyd Pollak (2013) Simon Stone: Collected Works, Cape Town: SMAC, page 121.

Provenance

Knysna Fine Art, Knysna, 30 January 2006.

The Oliver Powell and Timely Investments Trust Collection.