Strauss & co - 10 November 2014, Johannesburg

163 notes William Kentridge studied Fine Art at Bill Ainslie’s racially integrated Johannesburg Art Foundation between 1976 and 1978 after graduating from the University of the Witwatersrand with majors in Politics and African Studies. Between 1979 and 1981 he taught etching at the foundation; acted, directed and participated in various stage and film productions; and held two solo exhibitions at the Market Theatre Gallery. However, despite their success, he felt stuck in his work and questioned his ‘right to be an artist’. 1 Consequently he moved to Paris to study mime and theatre at L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq from 1981 to 1982. It would not be until 1984 that Kentridge began to draw again, and it would not be for another few years after that until he would take up landscape drawing again in earnest. This competent landscape was produced during the time that Kentridge was at the Johannesburg Art Foundation and is, in many respects, a harbinger of the imagery and iconography for which he is well known today. It was produced in the same year that he co-designed the set, poster and programme for Pippa Stein and Malcolm Purkey’s play Wooze Bear, performed at the Nunnery Theatre in Johannesburg. This early watercolour, in its original frame complete with the foundation’s stamp impressed into the reverse, is a valuable account of the development process of one the greatest artists alive today. 1. William Kentridge: Thinking Aloud, Conversations with Angela Breidbach (2006) Cologne: Kunstwissenschaftliche Bibliothek, Vol. 28. Page 11. 216 William Joseph KENTRIDGE south african 1955 – Winter Landscape signed and dated 77; impressed with the ‘Johannesburg Art Foundation’stamp on the reverse conté, charcoal and watercolour 35,5 by 45,5 cm R300 000–500 000