Description

A pastel drawing measuring 26 by 36,5cm, of a rocky landscape under a dark sky. The foreground features large, roughly rendered rocks in shades of grey and white, with touches of orange and blue. The background shows more rocks, a distinctive feature of the Cederberg region in the Western Cape.

"Laubscher’s life and travels are inseparable from this landscape. After studying in Europe (including Paris under Léger and London under Minton), he returned to South Africa and took a position with a national paint company. From 1955 to 1970 he balanced studio work with duties as a paint-sales representative (for Plascon), a job that put him on countless rural routes. He frequently drove through the Klein Karoo and over passes into the Swartland and Cederberg, sketching as he went. These road trips and family camping holidays provided raw material: quick studies of farm fields, scrub, and sandstone ranges. In the studio he later transformed those observations into the abstracted, hard-edged compositions for which he became celebrated, masterfully applying European modernist lessons to the local terrain. My family and I have long been drawn to the Cederberg’s wild beauty – the soaring sandstone towers, twisted monoliths and vast skies – and Laubscher’s canvas brings our memories vividly to life. In our own hikes to Wolfberg Arch and the Maltese Cross, we have seen the very forms he has distilled here. Thus, this work feels at once an accomplished abstraction and a quietly intimate portrait of a beloved place. In its elegant simplicity it captures not just the geology of the Cederberg but the profound sense of wonder that the region inspires."

Artwork Specifications

Provenance

Strauss & Co, 5 March 2018, lot 480. Private Collection, Cape Town.

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