Cape Town, 11 October 2011

127 225 Alexis Preller S OUTH A FRICAN 1911-1975 The Bull signed and dated ‘56 oil on board 21 by 43cm R300 000 – 500 000 PROVENANCE Helen de Leeuw 225 Three years before painting this work, Alexis Preller had undertaken a study trip to Italy and Egypt. The influence of the Quattrocento frescoes of Piero della Francesca and the symbolism of ancient Egypt are noticeable in his subsequent work. The Bull precedes a number of paintings produced in the late fifties and early sixties in which bulls are associated with the rituals and mythologies of African and European beliefs and practices. These had fascinated the young Preller, who as early as 1941, while a prisoner of war ‘up North’, wrote a letter describing his excitement at touring various tombs including that of the Sacred Bulls. 1 The bull-deity in Egyptian mythology, known as Apis, was a fertility god connected with grains and herds and closely associated with the pharaoh, because it symbolised the king’s courageous heart, great strength, virility and fighting spirit. Preller’s simplification of the bull and inclusion of turquoise in the horn and delineation of its hump, clearly draw on the hieratic qualities of Egyptian tomb frescoes. On a ground prepared to resemble the textured quality of mural art, he has employed the muted subtle tones of umber and burnt sienna that are reminiscent of Italian frescoes and of the rock art in Southern European caves like Altamira. 1 Esmé Berman and Karel Nel, Alexis Preller: Africa, the Sun and Shadows, Shelf Publishing, 2009, p62.