Strauss & co - 12 October 2015, Cape Town

582 Penny (Penelope) SIOPIS SOUTH AFRICAN 1 953- Hunting and Nature Scene, triptych executed in 1987 signed; each signed, inscribed with the medium, title and the artist’s address on the reverse pastel each: 69 by 99cm R800 000–1 200 000 Hunting and Nature Scene is one of the finest pastel drawings that Penny Siopis made in the 1980s. The triptych was selected for the prestigious Standard Bank National Drawing Competition in 1987, was exhibited at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown and toured major museums. Siopis began working in pastels during her sojourn in Paris in 1986 after being awarded the inaugural Volkskas Atelier Award for her major opus Melancholia 1 which allowed her to live and work at the Cité Internationale des Arts. Paris offered Siopis the opportunity to immerse herself in the art of Europe through regular visits to museums and so deepen her longstanding interest in women’s subjectivity and the type of art historical representations referenced in Melancholia . But Siopis found it impossible for practical reasons to work in the impasto technique of oil paint in Paris, and so shifted her medium to pastel. She was attracted to the vibrant colours and distinctive materiality of her new medium which she had never used before. As Colin Richards notes, these pastel drawings are ‘imbued with the pleasure of an artist taking liberties with the restricted art 280