Strauss & co - 19 November 2015, Johannesburg

EDUCATION ENDOWMENT AUCTION 54 97 WILLIAM JOSEPH KENTRIDGE SOUTH AFRICAN 1955– Untitled 2011 signed ink on paper 139 by 101 cm R700 000 – 800 000 William Kentridge , born in 1955, is a South African artist widely known for his prints, drawings, animations and operas. He was educated at King Edward VII School in Houghton, Johannesburg. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Politics and African Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand and then a Diploma in Fine Arts from the Johannesburg Art Foundation. In the early 1980’s, he studied mime and theatre at the L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris. Between 1975 and 1991, he was acting and directing in Johannesburg’s Junction Avenue Theatre Company. Kentridge established his artistic identity in the mid 1980’s with a series of prints and drawings. His work has since explored and combined a range of non-traditional media. He has been the recipient of numerous prizes including the Kyoto Prize (2010). His work has been exhibited widely throughout the world and recently, in 2015 has exhibited in South Africa, Mexico, New York, Rome, Switzerland, Amsterdam, and Beijing, China. William Kentridge has been an active printmaker while he studied politics, theatre and mime, and over his very varied career in filmmaking, stage direction, sculpture, and drawing for animation. He has produced a number of major linocut prints with the Artists’ Proof Studio and is a vocal supporter of their educational initiatives and access to both learning and practical experience, for many students who otherwise are denied such opportunity. Goodman Gallery is delighted to act as the Champion for the drawing of Nine Birds , and to support this auction project and its goals and principles. Nine Birds is a drawing informed by the film animation process; such drawings of birds taking flight or flapping in captivity, are both sequential, and represent the motion of wings, but are also nine variations of the form of the bird. This is a motif in many Kentridge projects, used to great effect with doves in the Magic Flute opera projections, and in 2010’s high and free-flying birds in the video Other Faces .