Footnotes

• EXHIBITED:
  Pretoria, Pretoria Art Museum, Cecil Skotnes Retrospective 1956-1972, March 1972, No. 88
  
  
  Skotnes began working with wood-engraving in 1955, and his early panels, such as the present lot, were developed directly from this printmaking technique. The wood block was carved and incised with linear patterns employed to make the maximum possible impact as a two-dimensional graphic design. The surface plane is then inked with a roller, so that the recessed areas are not coloured, in order to create the print.
  
  Four figures could, in fact, be used to make a print. Here we see a fine example of his work from the late 1960s, using the device of positive coloured image and negative dark background, which had played so significant a role in the advancement of his style, but not yet engaging fully with the use of colour, as seen in the Conversations panels of the early 1970s.