Strauss & co - 20 May 2019, Johannesburg

111 216 Alexis Preller SOUTH AFRICAN 1911–1975 Profile Head signed and dated 69 oil on canvas 40,5 by 46 cm R600 000 – 800 000 Over a lifetime, Alexis Preller painted a long line of powerful and symbolic heads, floating or disembodied portraits of mythical gods, kings, princes and angels, portraits that relate to the notion of a sculptural fragment. Profile Head is unusual as, even though it follows the prototypes of Preller’s seemingly accurate renderings of wooden sculptures, it is not one of Preller’s mythographically themed heads. It is the idealised portrait of a young man, most likely in Preller’s close circle of friends, whose identity remains uncertain. Preller very rarely painted actual portraits besides his rare self-portraits – of which only three are known to exist – or images of people in his close circle such as his sister Minnie, Christi Truter, a rare portrait of Pat Philip and, much later, a few portraits of Guna Massyn. In this beautifully scaled Profile Head , Preller brings to the pensive young man a fragility and sensitivity. Set against a halo of aquamarine that casts a shadow against the recessive teal blue, the young man is given a perfectly sleek profile, refined nose, dreamy narrowed eyes, sensually pouting red lips and a rose-coloured luminosity to his flawless light brown skin. His head is crowned with a mop of thick black hair into which Preller inserts a swath of hibiscus reds and pinks alongside the wavy aquamarine lines, and floats three circular drops of aquamarine water above his hair and neck. The young man’s stylised beard bears a closer resemblance to that of an actual person than those of his mythical or symbolic heads. Unlike his mythologically or symbolically themed portraits Preller does not embellish this portrait with the elaborate headdresses to be found in his 1957 portraits, The Young King and Young King, or the Poet Prince of 1975 (Lot 589, Strauss & Co, October 2017) with his crimson red conical fez and a jewel encrusted beard.