CYNTHIA VILLET (GARDNER) 1934-2018

CYNTHIA VILLET (GARDNER) 1934-2018

ABSTRACT IN COLOUR

OIL PAINTED COLLAGE WITH FOUND PAPER AND PRINTED FORMS ON PAPER

SIGNED IN PENCIL AND DATED 1997

430 X 420MM

Born in Beaufort West, Cape, South Africa, Cynthia Villet has resided and worked not only in South Africa, Canada, England and Israel, but - for many years - in Barbados in the West Indies with her architect husband, Kenneth Gardner. During the 70s and 80s, this veteran artist was described by Princeton academic, Roger Lipsey, as 'one of the foremost artists of her day, a brilliantly creative, poetic spirit in the tradition of Paul Klee, Ben Nicholson and Jules Bissier'.

Villet has had many exhibitions over the years, notably the Kouros Gallery on Madison in New York, the Debel Gallery in Jerusalem, the O.A.S. Gallery in Washington and several showings at Die Kunskamer in Cape Town. Villet has many achievements behind her. Besides being represented in many important private collections, both in South Africa and abroad, museum purchases include the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York, the Baltimore Museum of Art, U.S.A., the Jerusalem Museum of Modern Art, the OAS Museum of Modern Art of Latin America in Washington, U.S.A, and the South African National Gallery in Cape Town.

Her most recent work is in oils, watercolour and mixed-media on paper, together with mono-types and collages of a basically lyrical, abstraction nature. Now, as always, her colours, textures and calligraphic markings hark back to the Karroo of her childhood, although the soft colours of Vancouver, the tropical brilliance of Barbados, and the desert colours and infinite patterning of the Jordan Valley - not so different in essential quality from the Karroo, really - have all played their part and left their mark.