General (Black and White)

Literature

Bronwyn Law-Viljoen (2006) William Kentridge Prints, Johannesburg: David Krut Publishing, another example from the edition illustrated on page 49.

Notes

William Kentridge is an accomplished printmaker. His first solo exhibition, in 1979, consisted largely of prints. A collaborative medium, Kentridge has throughout has career has worked with respected printers, among them the English printer Jack Shirreff, described in a 2017 obituary as “one of the most influential atelier master printmakers of his time”.¹

Two editions of The General were printed by Shirreff, working with Andrew Smith at 107 Workshop in Wiltshire, and published by David Krut Fine Art, London. The present lot is from the first edition, which comprised of 15 impressions executed in black and white. A second edition of 35 impressions was subsequently hand-coloured by Kentridge. A third edition was printed at 107 Workshop and hand-coloured by Shirreff and Smith. Each impression was signed by Kentridge and issued unnumbered.

This work derives from a period of formal experimentation with scale and colour in both Kentridge’s drawings and prints. It forms part of a group of iconic and highly collectable works on paper printed by Shirreff and Smith that includes Head (1993), Dutch Iris (1994), Sleeper (1997) and the present lot. These works extended formal investigations first explored in Kentridge’s celebrated mixed-media drawing Iris (1991), made using ground pigments acquired in Italy.

For Kentridge, drawing and printmaking have always been closely intertwined. “I think printmaking in general made me aware of just how physical drawing could be,” he remarked in 2009. “I’ve always enjoyed the physicality of drawing. My more mature drawing came out of my earlier activity in etching.”² Far from functioning as a secondary means of image production, printmaking remains, for Kentridge, a “very central part” of his artistic process.³

^1. Mel Gooding (2017) The Guardian, Jack Shirreff obituary, online, accessed 29 May 2026.

^2. William Kentridge (2009) William Kentridge: Five Themes, exhibition catalogue, San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, page 231.

^3. William Kentridge (2015) Cahiers d’Art Special Issue, Picasso: In the Studio, London: Thames & Hudson.

Exhibited

Park Avenue Armory, New York, Robert Brown Gallery at IFPDA Print Fair, 6 November to 9 November 2003, checklist no. 4, another example exhibited.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, William Kentridge, 12 October 2004 to 10 April 2005, another example exhibited.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, In Praise of Shadows: William Kentridge in the Collection, 26 August 2013 to 2 February 2014.

Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, Lasting influences, 12 June 2021 to 24 July 2021, another example exhibited.