Strauss & co - 22 October 2012, Cape Town

154 Dorothy Kay, ‘White Cat’, 1952 an earthenware white-glazed model of a seated cat, with yellow eyes and a garland of flowers around its neck, the inside of the mould signed and dated in blue paint, 25cm high R10 000 – 15 000 LITERATURE Marjorie Reynolds, Dorothy Kay, Everything You Do is a Portrait of Yourself, Alec Marjorie Reynolds, Rosebank, 1989, page 250, where this cat is discussed: ‘Two early ceramics were clamoured for by cat lovers. The first (1951), untitled but known as Decorated Cat , is an almost life-size chocolate brown cat.....The second, White Cat, is similar in form, but in contrast it is in white glaze but for the pale colours of its garland and its yellow-green eyes with black slit pupils. Surprisingly, it is signed ‘D Kay, 1952’ as one would have guessed it to be the earlier of the two’. 153 Dorothy Kay, ‘Shepherd Boy’, 1951 the glazed earthenware figure draped in a blanket and holding his crook in his left hand, his face painted yellow, with large hoop earrings and wearing a blue headscarf, standing on an oval base inscribed with the title, the reverse signed and dated, 25cm high R9 000 – 12 000 LITERATURE Marjorie Reynolds, Dorothy Kay, Everything You Do is a Portrait of Yourself, Alec Marjorie Reynolds, Rosebank, 1989, pages 244 and 245, where a sketch of Shepherd Boy is illustrated. In a letter to America dated 1951, mention is made for the first time of Kay’s work in a new medium, work that was to engross her for the next three years. s ‘...I’ve made two statues! Pottery woman sent me some clay as a kind of challenge because I said ‘I’d love to do figures if I did pottery’ - Got clay yesterday morning, & by lunch one was done! Pottery woman brought Joan home at tea time but wouldn’t come in - said she’d come when I’d done a figure! so I said to Joan ‘Its done!’ Joan could’nt believe it & rang up Pottery woman who would’nt believe it either - & today I’ve done another - Two now, drying - for a couple of weeks - then they get fired - then I colour them & they’re fired again - Such fun - I expect they’re rotten as pottery goes - but I just had to try - I find it awfully easy!!! and clay is lovely to work with - so responsive - I just copy one of my drawings, front view - then put on the back & sides which follow easily! ...’ At the end of her letter Dorothy sketches the ‘two statues’ referred to in the first paragraph. 154 153 40