Strauss & co - 26 - 28 July 2020, Online

222 PROPERTY OF A COLLECTOR 453 Gregoire Boonzaier SOUTH AFRICAN 1909–2005 A Street Scene in Cornwall signed and dated 1935 oil on canvas 50 by 50 cm R200 000 – 300 000 PROVENANCE Strauss & Co, Cape Town, 11 October 2010, lot 209. 454 Gregoire Boonzaier SOUTH AFRICAN 1909–2005 Evening, Cape Town Harbour signed and dated 1933; inscribed with the artist’s name and the title on a label adhered to the reverse oil on canvas 35 by 45 cm R180 000 – 240 000 PROVENANCE Strauss & Co, Johannesburg, 7 September 2009, lot 25. Newly independent, out from his father’s shadow, and with three successful Cape Town shows recently behind him, a young and roguish Gregoire travelled to London in February 1935. Having known poverty at home as a young man, and having developed his ability through discipline rather than formal training, his experience of Europe, and his time at the Heatherley Art School and the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London, were life-changing and style- questioning. Gregoire produced a fantastic but small group of pictures based on a visit to Cornwall in 1935 and, no doubt, inspired by the off-kilter, naïve paint- ings by Christopher Wood and Alfred Wallis. The present lot, with its playfully corrupted perspective, its patches of pure colour, and its folksy figurines, is a wonderful and rare example. Com- paring it to Evening, Cape Town Harbour (Lot 454), painted just two years prior, is particularly revealing: the artist’s willingness to experiment is clear, as is the remarkable ease with which he had assimilated a Eurocentric and gentle avant-gardism.