Strauss & co - 26 - 28 July 2020, Online

114 289 Diane Victor SOUTH AFRICAN 1964– Tityus Tormented by a Vulture, from the Birth of a Nation Series 2010 signed charcoal and sepia wash on paper 89 by 139,5 cm R60 000 – 80 000 EXHIBITED Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, Transcend , 15 April to 22 May 2010. ITEM NOTES Birth of a Nation , a major series introduced in 2010 at the Goodman Gallery in a show titled Transcend , is drawn from the artist’s studies of classical works made while travelling in Europe. The series takes a familiar set of classical stories and superimposes on them African and South African themes and landscapes. The current lot, a typically authoritative drawing from the series, uses the fate of Tityos, the giant from Greek mythology, as its source. In a story similar to the Prometheus myth, Tityos, stretched out in Tartarus as punishment, has his liver torn from his body every night, only for it to regrow the following day. Victor’s presumably deliberate spelling of the name as ‘Tityus’rather than ‘Tityos’ suggests a covert reference to the genus of scorpion by that name.