Peter Clarke
We Are Never Alone
LOT 105
Peter Clarke
We Are Never Alone
About this Item
signed, dated and inscribed with the title; signed, dated, inscribed with the title and medium on a label adhered to the reverse; signed, dated, inscribed with the title and medium on the reverse of the sheet
Notes
Peter Clarke’s We Are Never Alone (1971) comes from a pivotal and emotionally charged moment in his career. Created in the early 1970s, a decade marked by forced removals under the Group Areas Act (including from his own home in Simon’s Town), the work balances quiet tenderness with poignant resilience.
Against a sweeping, stark landscape, two figures hold one another tightly, accompanied only by a pair of goats grazing near dry brush. The inscribed title, We are never alone, serves as both a literal observation of companionship and a deeply humanistic affirmation of warmth and solidarity amidst isolation and displacement.
The work coincidentally comes to auction at an important moment in light of the major critical reassessment of Clarke's practice, exemplified by Stevenson Gallery’s recent solo exhibition The Departure. Works from the early 1970s, particularly mixed media and gouache compositions that combine literary titles, graphic sensitivity, and social observation, are recognized as among the most expressive and sought-after periods of his extensive oeuvre.
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