Lot 89
Alexis Preller(South African, 1911-1975)'Large Red Choros'
23 March 2011, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £78,000 inc. premium
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Alexis Preller (South African, 1911-1975)
'Large Red Choros'
signed and dated 'Preller 66' (lower right); inscribed with title (to stretcher verso)
oil on canvas
137.5 x 137.5cm (54 1/8 x 54 1/8in).
signed and dated 'Preller 66' (lower right); inscribed with title (to stretcher verso)
oil on canvas
137.5 x 137.5cm (54 1/8 x 54 1/8in).
Footnotes
In the mid 1960s, Preller ventured into informal abstraction, producing several impressive works that were to shape his future artistic path. Large Red Choros borrows the word choros from a series of 1920s compositions by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and demonstrates the gestural enthusiasm with which Preller painted the canvas:
"Thick paint, laid on in swirling movements, created circular and spiralling forms, which mimicked the motion and the radiance of the stars and, especially, of the sun... It is not difficult to imagine the rhythmical stimulus of Villa-Lobos in the background, accompanying the 'music of the spheres' that Preller was creating."
A similar work from the same year, Grand Choros, 1966, is illustrated in Berman & Nel (2009, p.223).
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
E. Berman & K. Nel, Alexis Preller: Collected Images, (Saxonwold, 2009)