Strauss & co - 11 November 2019, Johannesburg

141 Robert Hodgins taught in the Art Department at the Pretoria Technical College (now Tshwane University of Technology) from 1954 to 1961.. He described a new staff member, Ernest de Jong, as being ‘full of America’. ‘We worked a lot together, pouring duco all over the place,’remembers Hodgins, ‘and that, to some extent, broke my way of painting. But the mood of painting – once I’d got over the intoxication of America – via de Jong – started to alter. Plumb ladies became heavy women, thick-thighed; Greek warriors became hulky threats.’ 1 The present lot, Torso, may well have been part of this new approach to painting, the upshot of which was a two-person exhibition with De Jong at Gallery 101, in Johannesburg, in 1961. Torso could well have been included on that exhibition. 1. Brenda Atkinson (2002) Robert Hodgins , Cape Town: Tafelberg, page 29. 150 Robert Hodgins SOUTH AFRICAN 1920–2010 Torso signed, dated c.1961 and inscribed with the title on the reverse oil on board 36,5 by 39 cm R40 000 – 60 000 149 Larry Scully SOUTH AFRICAN 1922–2002 Abstract Composition signed and dated ‘72 oil on canvas 36 by 45,5 cm R20 000 – 30 000