Cecil Skotnes by Frieda Harmsen - 1996 Retrospective
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Catalogue published in conjunction with the 1996 Cecil Skotnes Retrospective exhibition at South African National Gallery.
240 pages including over 60 pages of colour plates. A large (24cm by 35 cm), heavy, lavish book which comprehensively covers Skotnes' work. Condition - Excellent.
Text includes:
Teaching and Learning: Skotnes at Polly Street by Elizabeth Rankin
At the Cutting Edge: Cecil Skotnes as printmaker by Pippa Skotnes
The Skotnes and Gray Block Books (1972-81) by Stephen Gray
Landscape into Art: a reading of the Brandberg Wall series and other representations of the South African landscape by Cecil Skotnes by Michael Godby
Landscapes of the Mind: talking to Skotnes by Neville Dubow
Artist Resolute and Religious Art by Frieda Harmsen.
Cecil Skotnes was born in East London in 1926. After studying drawing under Heinrich Steiner in Florence he enrolled at the Witwatersrand Technical Art School and from 1947 to 1950 studied at the University of the Witwatersrand where his teachers included Willem Hendrikz, Douglas Portway and Charles Argent. In 1952 he was appointed cultural officer in charge of the Polly Street Art Centre, the institution virtually synonymous with Skotnes and which was particularly influential in the development of an urban black art.
From the mid-1950s onwards, with the encouragement of Egon Guenther, at whose gallery Skotnes held his first major exhibition of prints, he concentrated increasingly on printmaking, and more specifically on woodcuts. From 1961 onwards Skotnes transformed the woodblock itself into an independent art form. The block, cut and incised and coloured, was presented as the work of art.
The Amadlozi Group was formed in 1961 and the members comprised Skotnes, Guiseppe Cattaneo, Cecily Sash, Sydney Kumalo and Edoardo Villa the name chosen by Skotnes means Spirit of our Ancestors. In 1965 Skotnes was invited to exhibit at the Grosvenor Gallery in London and since then has exhibited extensively at international venues.
Apart from the graphics and the painted and incised wood panels, Skotnes has produced murals, designs for tapestries, oil paintings on canvas and drawings in a variety of media.
