Douglas Portway (South African, 1922-1993)
'Genie'
signed and dated 'Portway 65' (lower left); inscribed with title and dated '65' (verso)
oil on canvas
88.5 x 115.5cm (34 13/16 x 45 1/2in).
signed and dated 'Portway 65' (lower left); inscribed with title and dated '65' (verso)
oil on canvas
88.5 x 115.5cm (34 13/16 x 45 1/2in).
Sold for
£5,400
inc. premium
Footnotes
- "[By 1964, Portway] had already progressed beyond his liberating experiments towards a brilliant and distinctive mature style. The nature of the paintings of the period sets them on an ambiguous plane somewhere between the figurative and the non-figurative - yet the images resemble nothing in the world of visible surroundings...the paintings are not talking about specific subjects. They may make allusions to sensations, feelings and reactions aroused by physical relationships, events and places...but Portway is translating his experience into non-referential visual statement: he addresses viewers in a purely visual language, bypassing conceptual processes to reach their intuition through their eyes". (Berman 1993, pp.197-8)
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
E. Berman, Painting in South Africa, (Pretoria, 1993)
Category: Fine Art / South African Art
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