Strauss & co - 11 November 2019, Johannesburg

28 FROM THE ESTATE OF WOLFGANG BIEDERLACK, WINDHOEK 24 Adolph Jentsch GERMAN/NAMIBIAN 1888–1977 Landscape with Lone Oryx signed with the artist’s initials and dated 1938 oil on canvas, in the artist’s chosen frame from Tischlerei Ellmer, Windhoek 67 by 96 cm R700 000 – 1 000 000 Although born in Dresden, Adolph Jentsch, passionately endorsed by the perceptive Olga Levinson, remains the most iconic, evocative and beloved painter of the Namibian landscape. While he had rubbed shoulders at the Dresden Academy with Max Pechstein, George Grosz, Kurt Schwitters, and other radicals, Jentsch’s natural inclination was towards a more traditional and doctrinal approach. Removed from a dark, industrial and jittery pre-War context in 1938, and faced with the endless horizons, still heat, and blazing light of the then South West African landscape, Jentsch devoted the rest of his painting career to his adopted surroundings. Travelling continuously, and painting en plein air , he produced a mystic and meditative body of work defined by calligraphic, flickering watercolours and thoughtful, stroke-rich oil paintings. Long drawn to the serenity and lull of Oriental philosophies, Jentsch found the vastness, calm and silence of the local landscape inspirational. The two present lots from the Biederlack Estate are typical and dazzling examples of the artist’s output. Landscape with Lone Oryx relies on rich, contrasting colours: behind the smoke-white clouds is a deep cerulean blue, and between the clumps of bone-grey grass are patches of glowing scarlet and burning orange. Large-scale oil paintings by Jentsch are rare: the artist preferred to keep them in his own collection, and it is one of the region’s greatest cultural tragedies that the majority were lost in a storage fire in 1975.