Strauss & co - 17 February 2018, Cape Town

98 Strauss & co contemporary art auction One of the most fascinating “beads’ in the “string” of Robert Hodgins’s life, as told by himself, 1 is his account of how he came to South Africa following a difficult, if not traumatic childhood in London.Working on a counter in a shop named Libraire Populaire in Dean Street, Soho, Hodgins became aware of the rich cultural life flourishing in that seedy part of town during the 1930s, eyeing, if not encountering, such artists and writers as Dylan Thomas, Francis Bacon,WH Auden and Christopher Isherwood virtually every day. In his early teens, he also delivered newspapers and magazines around Soho for the shop - including the mildly erotic La Vie Parisienne - to titled gentlemen and restaurant owners, Mayfair whores, and nightclub owners alike. He was intrigued by the underbelly of the city.When he eventually got out of Soho, having been given a job in an office to answer the telephone (without ever having seen or used one himself), by sheer chance he met his great-uncle from South Africa, his grandmother’s brother.Within fifteen minutes Uncle Billy convinced Hodgins to come out to South Africa. He generously sent Hodgins £33 to buy two pairs of shoes, a suit and a passage on the Edinburgh Castle to Cape Town. Hodgins landed on the docks on his eighteenth birthday with exactly sixpence in his pocket. 33 Robert Hodgins SOUTH AFRICAN 1920-2010 Drunk in the Docks signed, dated 1996/7 and inscribed with the title and medium on the reverse oil on canvas 90 by 120cm R800 000 – 1 000 000 LITERATURE Brenda Atkinson et al. (2002) Robert Hodgins , Cape Town: Tafelberg. Illustrated in colour on page 25, with the title Drunk on the Docks . “One dressed respectably, old boy, you know, in a pinstriped suit, because that helped you get away with drinking longer into the night!”