Notes

It could be argued that still life painting dominated Preller’s four-decade career. The genre gave him opportunity to introduce his motifs, establish his intricate visual language, and develop his richly personal African symbolism. Particularly in the early stages of his career, the discipline also honed his drawing skills and heightened his sense of vivid colouring. Vase of Flowers, the present lot, made shortly after the artist’s return from the North African campaign, is a gorgeous and Gauguinesque example using an arrangement of blossoms and leaves as a centrepiece. The presumed study for the painting, made in pencil and pastel, and once in the collection of Norman Eaton, shows the artist’s overriding preference for colour: compared to the drawing, the final work is a riot of purple, turquoise and white against an acidic yellow background. With its range of fleshy pinks and vivid greens, Vase of Flowers recalls Revelation, an arresting and important painting also executed in 1945.