Strauss & co - 8 - 11 November 2020

113 659 Norman Catherine SOUTH AFRICAN 1949– Shady Dealer 2011 signed oil on canvas 100 by 120 cm R250 000 – 350 000 PROVENANCE Acquired from the artist by Louis Schachat. Die Kunskamer, 2012. Private Collection. Art history is stocked with portraits of art dealers, refined likenesses that recall the close relationship between artist and dealer. The genre however also includes singular works that are less than complimentary. Some speak archetypally, while others aim to prick particular figures. The present lot is an update of an earlier painting entitled Shady French Art Dealer (2006). The male figure at the centre of both Catherine’s works inhabits a yellow suit and holds a snake in his left hand. This far larger painting is more emphatic in its messaging, the dealer’s right hand gesturing to the snout that grows from his neck. He is here also portrayed smoking and immersed in a room of nocturnal blue. The night is a time of traumas and psychic release in a Catherine painting. The work is consistent with the artist’s evolutionary method. Catherine’s canvas works tend to explore ideas cyclically rather than announce wholly new proposals. Fragments from earlier paintings are often harnessed – either wholly or in part – to create new pieces.