27th Mar, 2017 15:00
Historic, Modern & Contemporary Art
148
Andrew Verster (South Africa 1937-2020)
Must We Wait Forever
oil and pencil on canvas
Artwork date: 1972
Signature details: signed and dated; signed, dated and inscribed with the title and medium on a label on the reverse
Exhibited: Durban Art Museum, Durban, Andrew Verster Retrospective Exhibition, 1987, catalogue number 56.
oil and pencil on canvas
Artwork date: 1972
Signature details: signed and dated; signed, dated and inscribed with the title and medium on a label on the reverse
Exhibited: Durban Art Museum, Durban, Andrew Verster Retrospective Exhibition, 1987, catalogue number 56.
(1)
98.5 x 162.5 cm
Notes:
Andrew Verster had his first solo exhibition at the Lidchi Gallery in Johannesburg in 1967. However, two years before, in 1965, the South African National Gallery in Cape Town decided to purchase a painting by the 28-year old artist from Durban. This painting, Old Woman, a portrait of a figure in which the mere visual appearance is subordinate to other pertinent insights about the individual, highlights “those two extremes of psychological condition – intimacy and isolation” (Berman 1983:476).Verster studied at the Camberwell School of Art in London and the Reading University in the UK. He returned to South Africa in 1963, settled in Durban and lectured at the University of Durban-Westville (then University College, Durban) and Natal Technikon (now DUT). In 1976 he gave up teaching to become a full-time artist. To coincide with his 50th birthday in 1987 the Durban Art Gallery organised a retrospective exhibition of his work. Must We Wait Forever was part of this collection of work that visited various museums throughout the country as a touring exhibition.The intimacy and isolation, the aspects Berman identified in Verster’s early work, become even more pronounced in this large-scale canvas, made up of collage-like compositions and painted in sepia colours: the colours of beach sand but also of memory; of immediate surroundings but also of distant experiences, the snapshot qualities of nostalgia. “Verster has devoted much attention to that mystique,” writes Berman (1983:477), “communicating it in images both of the participants and of their beach environment, the lonely setting sometimes symbolizing the mystical isolation of the persons who would normally inhabit it.” Like the enigmatic title, the figures portrayed evoke a range of responses. With some faces remaining and others reduced to fragments or figments of the imagination, we are led to wonder why they are waiting and what awaits them.
Johan Myburg
Sources:
Berman, E. (1983). Art & Artists of South Africa. Cape Town & Rotterdam: Balkema.
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Auction: Historic, Modern & Contemporary Art, 27th Mar, 2017
The Inaugural Cape Auction offed a diverse range of top-quality historic, modern and contemporary works. With a focus on critically engaged art and a curated approach, seasoned and new collectors competed to acquire significant works.
Aspire’s commitment to the growth of the art market saw international records broken in recognition of exiled South African artists. Louis Maqhubela’s Exiled King, a definitive, politically motivated work, sold for R341,040 - three times his previous record, and Albert Adams’ Untitled (Four Figures with Pitchforks), his first appearance at auction, sold for R136,416. Top prices were also achieved for established artists including J.H Pierneef, William Kentridge, and Edoardo Villa, and contemporary artwork fared exceptionally with record prices for David Brown, Steven Cohen, Mohau Modisakeng, Moshekwa Langa, and Mikhael Subotzky.
Viewing
Friday 24 March 2017 | 10 am – 7 pm
Saturday 25 March 2017 | 10 am – 5 pm
Sunday 26 March 2017 | 10 am – 4 pm
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