Fred Page

Notes

"In cool surrealistic spaces reminiscent of the Italian metaphysical painters, Page's work explores the depth of the human subconscious, creating dreamlike and disturbing discrepancies of scale in muted colour. In this work, a family portrait, Page uses birds to capture a frail poise that suggests hidden tensions beneath the elegant surface of the formal gathering. The sense of isolation and silence evoked in this work is a hallmark of Page's output, an extension of a reclusive and solitary life."¹

¹Michael Stevenson (ed) (2001) Michael Stevenson (ed) (2001) Works From A Private Collection of Contemporary South African Art on Permanent Loan to The Chancellor Oppenheimer Library, University of Cape Town, Cape Town: University of Cape Town, unpaginated.

Literature

Michael Stevenson (ed) (2001) Michael Stevenson (ed) (2001) Works From A Private Collection of Contemporary South African Art on Permanent Loan to The Chancellor Oppenheimer Library, University of Cape Town, Cape Town: University of Cape Town, illustrated in black and white, unpaginated, cat. no. 33.

Jeanne Wright and Cecil Kerbel (2011) Fred Page: Ringmaster of the Imagination, Port Elizabeth: Cecil Kerbel and Jeanne Wright, illustrated in colour on page 56.

Provenance

Stephan Welz & Co in Association with Sotheby's, Johannesburg, 6 May 1996, lot 259.

Property of a Gentleman.