The Swimmer

Notes

The present lot was the winning artwork for the Spier Contemporary Award in 2007.

Other examples from the edition are in the Johannesburg Art Gallery, Hollard, Spier Art and Ellerman House collections.

“No picture or verbal description will do justice to this work. You have to view it yourself. Simply described, it's a painted bronze sculpture of a woman poised on the edge of a diving board. Southwood has invested the woman with such life, though, such dynamism, that her stillness is filled with an overwhelming array of possibilities, some horrifying, some delightful. It is an apt summation of a work that evokes fraught emotions yet manages to remain highly engaging."¹

^1. Sean O'Toole (2003) ArtThrob, Press Reaction to Doreen Southwoods Win, online, accessed 25 February 2026.

Exhibited

Bell Roberts Art Gallery, Cape Town, Nothing Really Matters, 18 July to 2 August 2003.

Klein Karoo Nationale Kunstefees, Oudshoorn, Untitled, 29 March to 5 April 2003.

Dak'Art Biennale, Senegal, 7 May to 7 June 2004, another example from the edition exhibited.

Museum of African Art and the Cathedral of St John the Divine and The Contemporary Museum, New York and Honolulu, Personal Affects: Power and Poetics in Contemporary Art, 2004, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue.

Nirox Sculpture Park, Johannesburg, Twenty – South African Sculpture of the Last Two Decades, 6 June to 15 August 2010, another example from the edition exhibited.

Graham Modern, Sandton, Summer Salon, 1 February to 20 April 2022, another example from the edition exhibited.

Literature

Ruth Sacks (2007) Filling in the Gaps, unpublished, Master of Fine Arts Dissertation, University of Cape Town.

Ian Sample (2011) Mail & Guardian, That sinking feeling, online, accessed 5 January 2026.

Provenance

Property of a Gentleman.