Strauss & co - 26 - 28 July 2020, Online

174 398 Johannes Meintjes SOUTH AFRICAN 1923–1980 Sebastiaan 1948 carved yellowwood with steel stand full height: 183 cm excluding stand; width: 30 cm; depth: 23 cm, in two parts R200 000 – 300 000 PROVENANCE Purchased by the current owner from the artist’s estate in the late 1980s. EXHIBITED Stellenbosch University Museum, Prestige Memorial Exhibition , 15 July to 28 August 2010. Association of Arts Gallery Cape Town, Johannes Meintjes: Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture , 8 to 18 March 1950, cat. no. 68 (titled Jónatan). LITERATURE Johannes Meintjes (1948) Dagboek van Johannes Meintjes II , Molteno: Bamboesberg, the process of making the work is described on page 64. A number of press reviews of the exhibition at the Association of Arts Gallery, Cape Town, in 1950 mention the sculpture: Deane Anderson, Cape Argus , 9 March; Ruth Prowse, Cape Times , 9 March; Bernard Lewis, Die Suiderstem , 10 March. Sebastiaan in Johannes Meintjes’s studio in Cape Town, 1948 (Photograph: Anne Fischer.) The present lot is carved from a yellowwood roof beam taken from the historic homestead Grootzeekoegat, near Molteno in the Eastern Cape, the former family farm and home of the artist Johannes Meintjes. The work referred to as Jónatan in the artist’s diary was titled Sebastiaan upon completion. The actor Bill Curry (1931–2015), 17-years old at the time, was the model who posed for the sculpture. Meintjes wrote in his diary as the work progressed: ‘26 Novem- ber: My hands are filled with callus- es, cuts and wounds; this is a result of daily toil at the yellowwood fig- ure that we initially named ‘Karools’ in jest, but will eventually be called Jónatan. The sculpture progresses well. I have also been working at it for many evenings now and my body and middle sometimes ache. It is particularly exhausting to work with a 2,5 pound hammer above your head for extended periods. I wonder how many times I have hit my left thumb, but it is so boring to work with gloves – particularly in this heat’. 1 After its completion, during a studio visit from a local women’s group, Meintjes was enraged when some of the visitors snick- ered at the sculpture’s nudity and he promptly sawed the work in half. 1. Johannes Meintjes (1972) Die Dagboek van Johannes Meintjes Deel II , Molteno: Bamboesberg Publishers; page 64.