Malcolm de Chazal
Boats
About the SessionSpanning 4 centuries of global art history, The International Sale, presents 127 exceptional lots by artists from 27 countries across five continents. The auction highlights masterworks ranging from 17th century European paintings to post-2000 editions by contemporary artist's such as Mr Brainwash (lot 51), Jim Dine (lots 83-86), Isaac Julien (lot 108), Jeff Koons (45), and Lucas Samaras (lot 107 and 110). The sale is anchored by important pieces from Georg Baselitz, Erik Laubscher, Shirin Neshat, and a newly repatriated 1935 portrait by Irma Stern.
The auction's diversity is driven by rare museum-quality highlights, led by Irma Stern's Two Women (lot 31), which returns to South Africa after decades in a Berlin private collection. It is joined by Erik Laubscher's rare recto-verso painting Young Family / Construction (lot 48), an Iranian-American artist Shirin Neshat photographic portrait linked to her award-winning Turbulent installation (lot 66), and a uniquely hand-coloured linocut by German master Georg Baselitz titled Das Pferd, Im Wald und auf der Heide Series (The Horse, in the Forest and on the Heath Series) (lot 72).
LOT 27
Malcolm de Chazal
Boats
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
About this Item
signed
Notes
Malcolm de Chazal was an artist, writer and philosopher whose visionary work explored the relationship between colour, nature, perception and spirituality. Initially trained as an engineer, he later turned to literature, producing his best-known work, Sens-Plastique (1948), a collection comprising several thousand aphorisms. His writings attracted the attention of French writer and poet André Breton (1896-1966), who described him as a Surrealist.
In the 1950s, de Chazal turned increasingly towards painting, initially at the suggestion of Georges Braque (1882-1963). His paintings are characterised by vivid colour palettes, simplified forms and mystical subject matter. Unlike the speculative and aphoristic nature of his writings, his paintings focus on natural forms and landscapes, rendered in a primitive, emblematic style.
Chazel's work can be found in the Constitutional Court of South Africa's Collection.
Provenance
Gallery 101, Johannesburg, July 1973.
Liz Paturau, Mauritius.
Neil Tomkin, 1973, thence by descent to the current owner, 2014.
Literature
Gallery 101, Johannesburg, July 1973.
More from The International Sale
