Strauss & co - Review 2009

32 Edoardo Villa S OUTH A FRICAN 1915- Massai Warrior signed and dated 1963 steel, 168 by 40 by 40 cm SOLD R646 120, SEPTEMBER 2009 World Record Villa and Skotnes were members of the Amadlozi group, formed in Johannesburg in 1963 in the belief that art that reflects the environment and period in which it is produced becomes a repository for identity. According to Skotnes, the name, meaning ‘spirit of our forefathers’, was chosen to signal the unifying factors in their otherwise diverse styles. Both Villa’s Massai Warrior and Skotnes’s Mythical Figures show evidence of the new visual language each artist developed to explore the forms and symbolic significance of African art.