31st Oct, 2016 20:00
Historic, Modern & Contemporary Art
65
Robert Hodgins (United Kingdom 1920-2010)
Studies of Buddies
oil on canvas
Artwork date: 1997
Signature details: signed, dated, insribed with the artist's name. the title and medium on the reverse
Sold for R341,040
Estimated at R300,000 - R500,000
oil on canvas
Artwork date: 1997
Signature details: signed, dated, insribed with the artist's name. the title and medium on the reverse
(1)
60 x 70 cm
Acquired from the artist.
Notes:
Like so much of his art, Robert Hodgins’s Studies of Buddies (1997) was made at the interface between real life on one side, and his consumption of culture – high, popular and low in more or less equal measures – on the other. What is actually depicted is of the order of a weld, a fusing effected by violent, paradoxical sparking between polarities.
The first pair of “buddies” are what you might call semaphore louts. Physiognomies blurred, hollow-eyed, phalluses to the fore, they have no interrelationship. They have only street solidarity; hands are all high fives and arcane hip-hop gestures, their fingers electrically disembodied.
We know them from the television as we know them from the street, and we also know the polo-necked buddy intellectuals, set slightly back in space, all but sucked in and out of each other by the intensity of their privately interrogatory interactions.
Hodgins is the insightful chronicler of our milieu. But he is also playful. In Studies of Buddies he pulls off a feat of pictorial prestidigitation – transposing, in metaphor, the material reality of a road into the sky. Stars read in the painting like cat’s eyes; the moon is subjected to purposeful geometry.
Buddies is bravura Hodgins, an artist of insight and wit, at the height of his powers, and revelling in the almost Zen fit between the skills of his hand and the skills of his mind. It is also Hodgins at his most sympathetic, observing the solitary wannabe buddy at the right, excluded from the male bonding and display all around him. Soft, childlike and plump, lips puckered and cherry red he is the essence of unrequitement, and, in all probability, a figure drawn rather from the artist’s own memories of the hungers of youth.
Ivor Powell
You can place an absentee bid through our website - please sign in to your account on our website to proceed.
In the My Account tab you can also enter telephone bids, or email bids@aspireart.net to log telephone/absentee bids.
Join us on the day of the auction to follow and bid in real-time.
The auction will be live-streamed with an audio-visual feed.
Auction: Historic, Modern & Contemporary Art, 31st Oct, 2016
The line-up for our inaugural sale included an extraordinary selection of art. Works ranged from JH Pierneef’s breathtaking Karoo near Hofmeyer, painted in 1930, to Dan Halter’s 2006, ultraviolet light, Pefection.
Sculptures varied from Edoardo Villa’s acknowledgment of French artist, Aristide Maillol to Wim Botha’s heads that draw on classical and contemporary sources and Ed Young’s cheeky nude self-portrait. Also included were impressive photographs by award-winners, David Goldblatt and Pieter Hugo.
The auction set an impressive standard, with an outstanding sell-through rate of over 75% across 121 lots. The top lot of the sale was Alexis Preller’s exceptional Profile Figures (Mirrored Image), selling for over R7-million. Record sales were achieved for Villa, Goldblatt, and Hugo, amongst others.
Viewing
Friday 28 October 2016 | 10 am – 5 pm
Saturday 28 October 2016 | 10 am – 5 pm
Sunday 28 October 2016 | 10 am – 4 pm
Currency conversions are based on the exchange rate at the auction's start time and date. Bidders should verify the current exchange rate on the day of the sale. All invoices and payments must be made in South African Rands.
IMPORTANT NOTICE:
Logistics
While we endeavour to assist our Clients as much as possible, we require artwork(s) to be delivered and/or collected from our premises by the Client. In instances where a Client is unable to deliver or collect artwork(s), Aspire staff is available to assist in this process by outsourcing the services to one of our preferred Service Providers. The cost for this will be for the Client’s account, with an additional Handling Fee of 15% charged on top of the Service Provider’s invoice.
Aspire Art provides inter-company transfer services for its Clients between Johannesburg and Cape Town branches. These are based on the size of the artwork(s), and charged as follows:
Small (≤60x90x10 cm): R480
Medium (≤90x120x15 cm): R960
Large (≤120x150x20 cm): R1,440
Over-size: Special quote
Should artwork(s) be collected or delivered to/from Clients by Aspire Art directly, the following charges will apply:
Collection/delivery ≤20km: R400
Collection/delivery 20km>R800≤50km
Collection/delivery >50km: Special quote
Packaging
A flat fee of R100 will be added to the invoice for packaging of unframed works on paper.
International Collectors Shipping Package
For collectors based outside South Africa who purchase regularly from Aspire Art’s auctions in South Africa, it does not make sense to ship artworks individually or per auction and pay shipping every time you buy another work. Consequently, we have developed a special collectors’ shipping package to assist in reducing shipping costs and the constant demands of logistics arrangements.
For buyers from outside South Africa, we will keep the artworks you have purchased in storage during the year and then ship all the works you have acquired during the year together, so the shipping costs are reduced. At the end of the annual period, we will source various quotes to get you the best price, and ship all your artworks to your desired address at once.
Aspire Art will arrange suitable storage during, and cost-effective shipping at the end, of the annual period.
Collections
Collections are by appointment, with 24-hours’ notice
Clients are requested to contact the relevant office and inform Aspire Art of which artwork(s) they would like to collect, and allow a 24-hour window for Aspire Art’s logistics department to retrieve the artwork(s) and prepare them for collection.
Handling Fee
Aspire Art charges a 15% Handling Fee on all Logistics, Framing, Restoration and Conservation arranged by Aspire.