Strauss & co - 4 June 2018, Johannesburg

105 136 Nel Erasmus SOUTH AFRICAN 1928– Flight, diptych each signed and dated ‘05; signed and dated on the reverse acrylic on canvas 92 by 122 cm, each R100 000 – 150 000 EXHIBITION UJ Art Gallery, Johannesburg, Transnational Modernism: The Gutai Art Association, Christo Coetzee, and the Legacy of Abstract Expressionism in South Africa , 1–31 March 2013. LITERATURE Wilhelm van Rensburg (2013). Transnational Modernism: The Gutai Art Association, Christo Coetzee, and the Legacy of Abstract Expressionism in South Africa , Johannesburg: UJ Arts & Culture – UJ Art Gallery. Illustrated in colour, unpaginated. Nel Erasmus captures two birds in full flight in her large- scale diptych. Their flight is expertly captured in a couple of well-placed brush strokes with ample white space around them. Erasmus has always been fascinated by movement and her early work, inspired by Edgar Degas (1834–1917), depicts horses in full gallop. Nel Erasmus was a member of the Wits Group, together with Esmé Berman, Christo Coetzee, Larry Scully, Cecil Skotnes and Gordon Vorster. She studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1953 as well as at the Académie Ranson, under Gustave Singier in 1960. She was Director of the Johannesburg Art Gallery from 1964 until her retirement in 1977.