Strauss & co - September 2026 Highlights

Recent scholarship has identified within Kibel’s art a persistent atmosphere of melancholy and introspection, qualities that distinguish his work from the more outward looking modernism of his contemporary and friend, Lippy Lipshitz. Where Lipshitz conceived of the body as a site of vitality and physical affirmation, Kibel understood it as a repository of inner experience, a means through which the complexities of memory, solitude and psychological reflection could be articulated. In his portraits, the human figure becomes less an assertion of physical presence than an embodiment of consciousness itself, poised between material existence and emotional withdrawal. The material surface of Young Boy is central to its expressive force. Thick passages of paint, areas of abrasion and the visible texture of the unstretched canvas lend the work an unfinished vitality, emphasising the artist’s engagement with the act of painting itself. Equally important is the way in which Kibel draws the viewer into the emotional world of the sitter. The unstable contours and shifting planes of colour create a sense of intimacy and identification, enveloping the spectator within the psychological atmosphere of the work rather than merely presenting an image for detached observation. The major 2025 retrospective Palm Studios: Wolf Kibel and Lippy Lipshitz at the South African Jewish Museum, alongside a growing body of scholarship, has restored Kibel to a central position within South African art history, underscoring the singularity of his contribution to twentieth century modernism and reaffirming the enduring relevance of his psychologically charged vision. In this respect, Young Boy transcends mere representation, standing instead as a poignant meditation on childhood, memory and the fragile emotional condition that lies at the heart of Kibel’s art. Jay van den Berg, Associate Curator of the South African Jewish Museum. (fig 3) Boy with Pink Jersey (1935) Rupert Art Foun- dation, Stellenbosch, illustrated in Jay van den Berg (curator) (2025) Wolf Kibel and Lippy Lipshitz, Palm Studios , exhibition catalogue, Cape Town: Hober- man and South African Jewish Museum, page 103, plate 11.