The Red Tray

Notes

Kimberley-born Strat Caldecott is one of South Africa's most influential, almost forgotten artists, who made an invaluable contribution to the South African art establishment. He became known as the Cape Impressionist and is widely regarded as the leading local exponent of French Impressionism in the early 20^th century, 'with a freshness of vision rarely seen in the South African art of that era'.¹

Caldecott lived and worked in Paris for more than ten years and studied art at the Academie Julian in 1912 and then at the École des Beaux Arts from 1913 under the French painter Gabriel Ferrier. During this time he acquired a first-hand knowledge and understanding of French Impressionist painting techniques: the broken, rapid, choppy brushstrokes, the use of complementary colours such as the cool violet blues and warm yellows of shade and sunlight.

This is clearly recognisable in The Red Tray with its brightly coloured impressionistic blooms in cornflower blues, burnt orange tones, touches of yellow and brightly rendered green foliage. The Red Tray depicts a jar filled with zinnias so it is likely to have been painted in full summer. The flowers are set before a lacquered cinnabar red tray and catch the light, colour and movement with bold brush strokes, often juxtaposing black with white or lighter shades to create a sense of light typical of the Impressionists.

The Red Tray is one of only a few still lifes known to have been painted by Caldecott: apart from The Red Tray, another still life, from 1920, featured a bottle and glass, while Sideboard was found in 1970 in the estate of his widow F Zerffi-Caldecott.

¹ L. Alexander & E.Cohen, 150 South African paintings, past and present, Cape Town, 1990, p58.

Provenance

Strauss & Co, Cape Town, 5 June 2017, lot 205.

Private Collection.

Exhibited

Argus Gallery, Cape Town, Strat Caldecott, March 1944, cat. no. 29.

Literature

J du P Scholtz (1970) Strat Caldecott, AA Balkema Cape Town, illustrated as plate 16, unpaginated.

(1944) Strat Caldecott, Cape Town: Argus Gallery, March 1944, cat. no. 29.