Hieratic Women

Provenance

Gifted from the artist to the current owner.

Strauss & Co, Johannesburg, 30 June 2014, lot 237.

Private Collection.

Literature

Esmé Berman and Karel Nel (2009) Alexis Preller: Collected Images, Saxonwold: Shelf Publishers, the completed version is illustrated in colour on page 160.

Pretoria Art Museum, Pretoria, Alexis Preller Retrospective, 24 October to 26 November 1972, catalogue number 79, the completed version is illustrated in black and white.

Notes

The present lot was a precursor to the artwork by the same name currently held in the WITS Art Museum.

'With Hieratic Women, Preller's mythic Africa has acquired palpable identity. These cryptic figures are numinous icons, images of godly beings who possess their own, independent reality and occupy their own poetic plane within the cosmos of the mythic race.'¹

^1. Esmé Berman and Karel Nel (2009) Alexis Preller: Collected Images, Saxonwold: Shelf Publishers, a similar example illustrated in colour on page 160.