In the opinion of brilliant art historian, Evelyn Cohen, ‘Strat Caldecott was possibly the only South African artist who absorbed both the vision and style of French art at source in Paris and brought it to bear, unmodified, undimmed on his rendering of the local landscape’.¹

Caldecott forsook a legal career to study in Paris from 1912, initially at the Académie Julian and then at the École des Beaux Arts under Gabriel Ferrier. With the outbreak of World War I he joined the British Army but returned to Paris from 1919 until 1923, where he relished the  atmosphere of artistic independence and enjoyed encounters with artists such as Picasso.

As a devoted Francophile, he preferred to paint in an Impressionist style. The present lot depicts the sweep of the bay towards Simon’s Town. The dappled light falling on the beach and the foreground sand dunes is captured with broken brushstrokes of pastel colours while darker, but no less dazzling tones, flicker in the shadows. The cool colours of the bright sky, the distant mountain range and the sea ensure a greater sense of depth while the warm tones and lively painterliness of the dunes gives them a palpable physicality inviting us to step into this unspoilt, spectacular beach.

1. Lucy Alexander, Emma Bedford, Evelyn Cohen (1988) Paris and South African Artists 1850 –1965, South African National Gallery, page 17.