Strauss & co - 15 October 2018, Cape Town

287 572 Freida Lock SOUTH AFRICAN 1902-1962 Kitchen Interior signed oil on paper laid down on card 56 by 53cm R  –   A prominent member of the New Group (1938–54), Freida Lock was proficient across a range of painterly genres but it is her masterful domestic interiors that rank as her crowning achievement. Lock’s domestic circumstances helped form her eye. Painter Johannes Meintjes described her 71 Bree Street studio-residence as “one of the most incredible institutions of its kind ever seen”. 1 A skilled colourist with a keen sense for architectural detail, Lock was adept at using colour to impressionistically evoke the luminosity of the everyday objects. Her vegetables in this lot are rudimentary lines of green; a dot of red denotes variety. Two colours dominate this composition: the marine blues of her kitchen furnishings and pink of the walls. Lock’s use of colour is nonetheless economical. Brick red is used to delineate both the tablecloth and fill in parts of the floor. While her painting faithfully enumerates the objects that make up this pre-modern kitchen – stocked with crockery, storage containers, vegetables, a leafy flower and electric hot plate – Lock ably succeeds in offering more than just a descriptive sketch. – Sean O’Toole 1. Johannes Meintjes. (1955) Frontier Family , Central News Agency, Johannesburg. Page 168.