Footnotes

• PROVENANCE:
  Commissioned directly from the artist
  Collection of the late Anthony Quinn
  
  
  During his time in Johannesburg, Quinn visited Cecil Skotnes at home. The artist's wife Thelma later recalled, in a 2008 interview: "He wanted to meet Cecil so he came to the house. He was an artist himself, and he said, 'Cecil I love your work'."
  
  The present lot was commissioned at that meeting. Quinn sent the artist a photograph, humorously inscribed "see if you can fix the face". Quinn later wrote to the artist to express his delight with the finished portrait, which was also used to illustrate his biography.
  
  The artist's daughter Pippa recalls the artist and actor enjoying several good dinners together during Quinn's time in South Africa, with Cecil adopting Quinn's famous lines in the 1964 film Zorba the Greek about being "the whole catastrophe" as a family saying.
  
  We are grateful to Pippa Skotnes for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.

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Category: Fine Art / South African Art

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