Curtains

Notes

The present lot, Curtains, is a compelling example of Andrew Verster’s enduring fascination with and reverence for Indian culture. Echoing the subject matter of Henna Hands (2003), the work intricately renders the elaborate motifs of traditional Indian mehndi, both adorning the subject’s hands and extending into the richly patterned background. Through this layering of decorative detail, Verster evokes a sense of intimacy, ritual, and cultural continuity.

Verster’s artistic practice was deeply shaped by the environments and communities that surrounded him. While his travels to Japan, Paris, and India all informed his visual language, it was his lifelong connection to Durban’s Indian community that had a particularly profound influence on his work. After moving to Durban in 1963 to take up a lecturing position at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, he became immersed in the city’s vibrant Indian culture, which would remain central to his artistic identity for decades.

Verster famously reflected: “There are two Indias in my life – Little India, the Durban that has been my home for over 40 years – and the other one that I got to know recently.” For the artist, his later travels to India were not an encounter with the unfamiliar, but rather the completion of a long-standing personal and artistic connection. As he noted, “It did not feel exotic but ordinary...I painted my Indian pictures before I went.” This deeply rooted engagement with Indian culture is powerfully evident in the present lot, where ornament, memory, and observation converge in a richly expressive composition.¹

^1. Carol Brown (2007) ArtThrob, Andrew Verster, online, accessed 28 May 2026.

Henna Hands (2003) Strauss & Co, Online, 14 March 2022, lot 274.