Strauss & co - 6 March 2017, Cape Town

204 479 William KENTRIDGE SOUTH AFRICAN 1955– Scribe executed in 2011 signed, numbered 35/40 in pencil and embossed with the David Krut Workshop chop mark in the margin etching and aquatint sheet size: 44 by 39 cm image size: 25 by 19,5 cm R  –   ‘The Scribe print came fromWilliam Kentridge’s work on the project he did for the Louvre last year Carnets d’Egypte (Egyptian Sketchbooks). For this exhibition, Kentridge made 16 short films that were shown in the Egyptian Collection wing of the Louvre. Some of the images that Kentridge made, both in films and in drawings, were of the scribe. Here the artist puts himself in the scene, adopting the position of the scribe, while he recited Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous poem Ozymandias - an ode to Ramses II. One of the short films, titled Scribe, involves the silent interaction between two scribes, both Kentridge as the scribe. From this project, the scribe was adapted into other work - this small etching, some photogravures by master printmaker Randy Hemminghaus, as well as some charcoal drawings on multiple pages. Ancient Egypt is a theme that first appeared in Kentridge’s work in 2004, in preparation for his staging of Mozart’s comic opera, The Magic Flute .’ Juliet White. (2011) William Kentridge: Scribe: a new print , [Online], Available: davidkrutprojects.com/7771/wk-scribe [1 February 2017].