PRESS RELEASE____________________________________________________________DECEMBER 2009

                                               Lot 644

                                               Cecil Edwin Frans Skotnes (South African 1926-2009) 

                                               METAPHYSICAL LANDSCAPE 

                                               signed 

                                               oil on panel within a carved, incised and painted artist's frame

                                               with brass mounts 

                                               107 by 129cm (including the frame)

                                               R600 000 - R800 000

“As chronicler of the South African situation, I could not think in European terms. My approach had to originate here; otherwise my art would be a lie of little importance.”

Cecil Skotnes 1926 - 2009

This year has seen the passing of one of South Africa’s great Art Masters – Cecil Skotnes. His contribution to the cultural identity of South Africa is immeasurable; as an artist, he strove to create artworks that were of and pertinent to his identity as a South African – that reflected the conflicted history that we still experience and from which we are emerging. His work represents a convergence of both European and African cultures and consciousness. His travels and studies familiarised him with international art trends as he participated in many international art exhibitions. He was able to absorb, reinterpret, and thus remain at the forefront of international painting trends. However, his contribution was not merely limited; great though it was, to his own artistic output. As a teacher, particularly through the group of Polly Street School artists, his guidance inspired a generation of South African black artists to find a voice that created a genre of art that was uniquely pertinent to their own identity. As a curious person, he was constantly engaged with the world around him – both contemporary and of ancient cultures. He gave of himself generously to his fellow artists and remained in contact with the art world by attending exhibitions throughout his life, of both established and upcoming artists.

Skotnes rose to the iconographical and formal challenge to draw a distinction between South African and European paintings, particularly when it came to painting the South African landscape that is so physically different from the European environment – in geomorphology, climate and vegetation. “Skotnes was drawn to [Pierneef’s] art because his vision was synoptic, and his landscapes always underpinned by a stringent architectonic harmony and order. Because he uncovered the formal principles that governed the lie of the South African land, Skotnes also felt he was the first South African artist to lay the foundation upon which a purely South African style could be erected.”[1] Whereas Pierneef’s paintings may be read as grand Nationalistic narratives, Skotnes’ work may be seen as dissident interior dialogues that challenge the prevailing political discourse with personal insight and empathy. The “African” quality of Skotnes’ work, which so many have tried to define, arose from his scrutiny of the landscape and an understanding of both the social and tectonic forces at work. As he put it “Traditional African art did not take on its form fortuitously; it is based on structural characteristics that can be seen in the physical African environment.”[2]

Landscapes formed the focus of his earliest works and remained central to his oeuvre. This bold and dramatic work, painted in the late 1990s, may be grouped with the work he created for a solo exhibition held in Miami at the Gary Nader gallery in 1999. Formally, it relates to the Tsibab series, particularly Tsibab Series no. 1: metaphysical landscape (1999). This series focused on the Namibian landscape and the stories it holds within its geomorphology – that of the tragic decimation and massacre of the San people and the brutalities of nature that formed such an extreme environment. The striking rich earth colours - blood red, baked ochres and umbers, bleached bone white and burnt charcoal black; are more typical of his Highveld palette before his move to Cape Town in the mid 70s. If we compare this painting to the Tsibab series then we see that they all contain the same blue band of sky. In this series, Skotnes included the human form as simplified, elongated, totemic shapes, here the human figure either is absent or entirely assimilated into the patterns that form the artwork.

This painting is ostensibly abstract but Skotnes has rejected the Modernist notion of no subject. This work belongs to the tradition of romantic landscape painting as it is imbued with polemic history. Skotnes has reduced the subject to simplified shape and forms expressed through colour. One may conjecture that the location of his home and studio on the slopes of Table Mountain in Cape Town influenced the presentation of the landscape in a vertical format. The monolithic mountain would have presented itself as a surface rearing behind his home, limiting space and crowding in on Skotnes with its presence. The vertiginous rise of the landscape to meet the picture plane in the painting translates into an extremely powerful visual presence. His response to the landscape, inspired by natural forms, is transformed by pictorial means into a resonant visual experience. This is communicated through the tension created by the vitality of the dramatic colours, the complex compositional tapestry of design and the juxtaposition of geometric hard edges against soft sinuous organic lines. Reading the painting, the shapes may be interpreted as the surface of a landform including interpretations of erosion patterns and liesegang banding. Simultaneously we may see it as a cross-section exposing tectonic plates, dykes, fissures, pegmatite veins and fossilized bones held in rock. Interpretations also suggest an aerial view of a landscape, while the right hand side of the painting may be read as anthropomorphic forms calling to mind a uterus and embryo. The painting allows for various conjectured interpretations, all of which are informed by each viewer’s personal experience. This is precisely the skill, which Skotnes brought to his works, its quidditas – a distillation of intellectual, primal, and optic knowledge gained through a lifetime of observation and deeply experiential, conscious living.

Cate Wood Hunter BFA (R.U.) MFA (U.S.)