Strauss & co - 30 June 2014, Johannesburg

193 249 RobertGriffiths HODGINS south african 1920–2010 Artist’sModels signed, dated 1991/2and inscribedwith the titleon the reverse oil onboard 62by 76,5 cm R300000–400000 notes Artist’sModels is a strikingexampleof RobertHodgins’s distinctiveability tocapture individual personalities throughanabstract and imprecisevernacular. Typical of his earlier style, thispaintingchallenges the viewer’sperceptions through theconstant fluctuation of identitiesgeneratedby theambiguityof the characteristicsheassigns to thevarious figures. Stark colourcontrastsandprecise lineshighlight individual differenceswhile imprecisesmudges lendequivocation. Anunusual featureof thispainting is thepresence of theartist himself. Although, inhis longcareer, Hodginsdepictedanarrayof colourful characters, he rarely, if ever, includedhimself as a subject. Choosing toportrayhimself alongsidehismodelshighlights the legendarygregariousnessof theartist and renders, perhaps, abetter self-portrait thanany other depiction theartist couldprovide. Fromhisearliest studiesatGoldsmithCollege, London, in the 1950s, Hodginsmaintainedan interest in lifedrawingandpaintingas a reflection of thehumancondition. Although, stylistically, his approach to representationhaddeveloped dramatically from theearliest exampleswhere accurate renderingwas replacedwithspatial ambiguityand formswereemphasisedwithsimplified featuresandvisceraldistortions, healwayscaptured theessenceofhismodels –eachunique.