Helene Love-Allotey
Head of Department
Lot 33*
Maggie(Maria Magdalena) Laubser (South African, 1886-1973)Indian Girl (framed)
Amended
22 March 2023, 15:00 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £151,500 inc. premium
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Maggie (Maria Magdalena) Laubser (South African, 1886-1973)
Indian Girl
signed 'M.Laubser' (lower left)
oil on canvas on board
60 x 56cm (23 5/8 x 22 1/16in).
(framed)
signed 'M.Laubser' (lower left)
oil on canvas on board
60 x 56cm (23 5/8 x 22 1/16in).
(framed)
Footnotes
Provenance
Mr G de Leeuw, South Africa;
Dr T A Redelinghuys, South Africa;
A private collection, South Africa.
Exhibited
MacFayden Hall, Pretoria, Maggie Laubser, September 1939.
Literature
Bouman, A.C., Huisgenoot: 1 January 1943: 7. (illustrated)
Bouman, A.C., Forum 2(2): 26 August 1939: 8. (illustrated)
Mariais, D., Maggie Laubser, her paintings, drawings and graphics (Johannesburg and Cape Town: Perskor, 1994) (illustrated) p, 243.
Bouman, A.C., Painters of South Africa, (Cape Town: De Bussy, 1949), p, 80. (illustrated)
With the present work featured in her 1939 solo exhibition at MacFayden Hall following a number of previous successful exhibitions and her recent election to the New Group founded by Gregoire Boonzaier, Maggie Laubser had defied her previous critical reception and prevailed to leave an acclaimed artistic legacy.
Beginning her career as a landscape artist, Maggie Laubser's development into portraiture did not eradicate her use of environmental motifs given the addition of plants that frame the sitter in the present lot. This compositional theme of a background of Fauna was ever present in the portraits executed by the artist during her travellers to KwaZulu Natal in 1936. It was during this trip that the artists style changed, stepping away from naturalist depictions and towards works that had dream-like almost conceptually surrealist qualities, such as the present lot. This romanticised work featured portraits of women set against a background of exotic plants native to the area, displaying the sitter's relationship to their national context contributing to the observers understanding of the identity of the subjects.
'Her most exotic departure was a painting trip towards the middle of 1936 to Natal where she recorded with romantic lyricism the shy, wide-eyed wonder of young Indian girls.' Johan van Rooyen, 'Maggie Laubser', (Cape Town and Johannesburg: South African Art Library, Strike Publishers, 1974), p.17)
The tranquillity in the current painting could be argued to reflect qualities of German Expressionism, perhaps inspiring Laubser during her travels throughout Germany, specifically Berlin from 1922 to 1924. Perhaps most influenced by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and the Brücke movement, who characterised their style by non-traditional uses of colour, we can see the presence of a bright palette and simplified form given the broad use of brushstrokes within the present work. Coherent with her style of flattening her works or eradicating naturalistic approaches to portraiture, Laubser aimed at creating idealised works motivated by aesthetic beauty.
'Whatever the object on my canvas, it must be a vision of that object, whether one recognises it or not; or whether it has that misty form in dreams, it must only represent the final spiritual shape of the object'(Laubser: What I remember, 1963:4)
The presence of both a human and plant correlate with the artist's Christian Scientist beliefs and holding respect for everything that lives. Beyond aesthetic motifs, Laubser's treatment of colour, specifically that of the colour yellow, could also be credited to her spiritual beliefs. These religious convictions informed her use of yellow to signify spiritual intellect. Furthermore, the presence of light and dark is formulated by the addition of the colour yellow reflected on the left side of the sitter, applied to both her skin and clothes. Marking out the following quotation from The Human Aura and the Significance of Colour left in her estate, it is clear that Laubser must have taken great influence from these passage:
'The brightest, clearest yellow betokens the highest and purest type of intellect...The lighter shades of yellow are quieting in the extreme to an overwrought nervous condition, and people who generate aura of that hue accomplish often a great deal in the direction of healing by their quiet regulating presence.' (W.J. Colville, The Human Aura and the Significance of Colour, (Chicago: Occult Publishing, 1909), p. 35).
This present work, indicative of the artist's portraits between the 1920's to the 1930's, is stylistic of that time in her broad brushstrokes and vivacious palette, reflective of her appreciation for the richness of life and spiritualistic views on nature stemming from her dedicated religious beliefs and influence from her exploration expeditions.
Bibliography
Johan van Rooyen, Maggie Laubser, (Cape Town and Johannesburg: South African Art Library, Strike Publishers, 1974), p. 17.
Elizabeth Delmot, South African National Gallery, Maggie Laubser- Early work from the silberberg collection, (Cape Town: December 1987)
W.J. Colville, The Human Aura and the Significance of Colour, (Chicago: Occult Publishing, 1909)
Saleroom notices
Please note, this work's medium should read 'oil on board', not 'oil on canvas on board' as incorrectly stated in the printed catalogue.
