Alexis Preller ,1975
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Notes : According to Karel Nel and Esmé Berman, the year 1965 ended on a high note for Alexis Preller with his Primavera purchased by the South African National Gallery in Cape Town.[i] Completed in that year, it was considered a magnum opus, not only for its subject and scale but also for its referencing of the apogee of early Renaissance art, namely Sandro Botticelli’s famous painting of the same name, which Preller would have seen on his trip to Italy in 1953.Head of a Prince was probably painted during this period as it shares certain key features with his major museum piece. The paternal figure seen comforting the semi-nude young man in Primavera wears the same headgear as this young prince. The rounded conical hat may be derived from the pileus, a brimless felt hat worn in ancient Greece and Rome and seen in late Medieval and early Renaissance paintings. In both paintings, the hat is surrounded with a band of fabric from which tendrils of hair emerge to frame the sensitive face.With his dark eyes and aquiline nose, his seductive mouth edged by a youthful moustache, and his aristocratic mien, this is a thoughtful and poignant expression of youth. The subtlety of colour, captured in pared-down earthy ochres and ox blood reds, lends the work both regal splendour and calm tranquility. While the source is European, this prince may equally embody African royalty as the artist was increasingly exploring indigenous ideas and traditions.In a letter to a collector on 6 May, Preller states enthusiastically “the painting with the red ground is now in the National Gallery in Cape Town …”. Relating Primavera to his earlier two Hieratic Women paintings, which he considered very important, he elaborates “the figures depart from the studies I made for years from the Mapogga women and represent more distinctly a totally ‘African’ quality (as against a more local definition.
Emma Bedford
Condition_report : No condition report.
