Erik Laubscher - Summer Keurfontein
Erik Laubscher
South African 1927-2013
Summer Keurfontein
1995-1996
signed and dated '95; signed, dated and inscribed with the title on the reverse
oil on canvas
117,5 by 142,5cm excluding frame; 141 by 165,5 by 6cm including frame
Provenance
Valterra Platinum Collection.
Erik Laubscher is best known for his vistas, which take their cue from the Western Cape landscape. Although Laubscher was the first living South African artist to have an artwork fetch more than a million rands at auction, he worked to support his family during his career. Between 1955 and 1970, he worked as a salesman for a paint company and travelled extensively through the Boland and Little Karoo, immersing himself in a terrain defined by the Cape Fold Mountains.
For Laubscher, the view is vast. Distilled detail and intense colours are consistently anchored in a clearly defined structure. Laubscher wanted his landscapes to extend beyond the canvas perimeter, evoking the immense scale of African spaces. There is also the vastness of deep time. Summer Keurfontein drew inspiration from the Little Karoo, a rugged landscape that lays bare the ancient primal forces of wind and rain.
From 260 to 300 million years ago, the Falkland Plateau collided with Southern Africa, buckling up the gnarled blue ridge we see in the distance. Laubscher’s one-point perspective catapults us down ridges, gouged by 50-million-year-old rivers. The vivid colour contrasts evoke the intensity of this drama in a time that stretches our human imagination.
Laubscher was a pioneer of abstract and modernist painting in South Africa, and his landscape paintings have become iconic. 6 Cheviot Place, the home of Laubscher and his wife Claude Bouscharain, became the frequent meeting place for the artistic and literary avant-garde of Cape Town. The group included André P Brink, Ingrid Jonker, and Albie Sachs. Sachs was later appointed a judge to South Africa’s first Constitutional Court. He bought a similar painting to the present lot from the artist titled Keurfontein, Laingsburg; the work was later donated to the Constitutional Court collection.
Erik Laubscher, Keurfontein Lainsburg, 1996, Constitutional Court Collection.
Erik Laubscher
South African 1927-2013
Summer Keurfontein
1995-1996
signed and dated '95; signed, dated and inscribed with the title on the reverse
oil on canvas
117,5 by 142,5cm excluding frame; 141 by 165,5 by 6cm including frame
Provenance
Valterra Platinum Collection.
Erik Laubscher is best known for his vistas, which take their cue from the Western Cape landscape. Although Laubscher was the first living South African artist to have an artwork fetch more than a million rands at auction, he worked to support his family during his career. Between 1955 and 1970, he worked as a salesman for a paint company and travelled extensively through the Boland and Little Karoo, immersing himself in a terrain defined by the Cape Fold Mountains.
For Laubscher, the view is vast. Distilled detail and intense colours are consistently anchored in a clearly defined structure. Laubscher wanted his landscapes to extend beyond the canvas perimeter, evoking the immense scale of African spaces. There is also the vastness of deep time. Summer Keurfontein drew inspiration from the Little Karoo, a rugged landscape that lays bare the ancient primal forces of wind and rain.
From 260 to 300 million years ago, the Falkland Plateau collided with Southern Africa, buckling up the gnarled blue ridge we see in the distance. Laubscher’s one-point perspective catapults us down ridges, gouged by 50-million-year-old rivers. The vivid colour contrasts evoke the intensity of this drama in a time that stretches our human imagination.
Laubscher was a pioneer of abstract and modernist painting in South Africa, and his landscape paintings have become iconic. 6 Cheviot Place, the home of Laubscher and his wife Claude Bouscharain, became the frequent meeting place for the artistic and literary avant-garde of Cape Town. The group included André P Brink, Ingrid Jonker, and Albie Sachs. Sachs was later appointed a judge to South Africa’s first Constitutional Court. He bought a similar painting to the present lot from the artist titled Keurfontein, Laingsburg; the work was later donated to the Constitutional Court collection.
Erik Laubscher, Keurfontein Lainsburg, 1996, Constitutional Court Collection.
