Business Day Art - December 2004 Supplements

Below is the text as written for the Fair Vaue column by Harriet Hedley.

Art for art's sake, or for money's sake?

Art is not often an investment that shows immediate returns. The price of a piece is determined by many factors and may fluctuate acording to trends. Perhaps the piece you bought is best left on your wall...
 
Gary Cotterell bought the Cecil Skotnes painting at auction only a few months ago for R3 500. "I have no real intention of selling the painting but was curious what it is worth now," says Cotterell.
 
Harriet Hedley, of fine and decorative arts consultancy Gillian Scott-Berning, who did the appraisal, says Skotnes, born 1926, is a remarkable South African artist who has represented this country at many international venues over the years in Europe, South and North America and Africa.
 
"His work embraces all forms of media and techniques and he concentrated in the early '60s increasingly on printmaking, mostly from woodcuts. He then developed the woodblock itself as an independent form of art, which we have come to associate him with. The technique he devised was to engrave an image into wooden panels and then colour the absorbent surface by rubbing in coloured pigments."
 
Skotnes drew himself away from his predecessors' conventional art forms, bringing his work in line with contemporary international developments while expressing the spirit and heritage of Africa. He was influenced by Henry Moore and Picasso, which can be seen in his strong and monumental work.
 
"In the early '60s he returned briefly to oil painting, of which this is an example, signed and dated 1961. It is our opinion that if this picture were sold at auction it could fetch in the region of R4 000-R6 000," says Hedley. "He has over the years produced works in oils and water-colours, particularly some exquisite still-life works. Although they are not as well known as his carved and incised panels, it is a pity that they do not fetch higher prices at auction."
 
Dominique King writes that her mother inherited a Gwelo Goodman painting in 1948 from her great grandmother, who was Sir Marshall Campbell's wife. "We had the pice evaluated years ago but feel they were incorrect and would love to have one of your experts take a look at it as we believe it's a remarkable artwork," says King.
 
The 1m x 75cm painting, of a green flower pot with roses, is painted on black canvas.
 
Says Hedley" "Robert Gwelo Goodman was born in England, came out to SA with his parents in 1886 and died in Cape Town in 1939. He studied under JS Morland in Cape Town and the Academie Julian in Paris, where Matisse was a fellow student. He moved to London and had three landscape pictures accepted at the Royal Academy and also did portrait commissions."
 
He came back to SA in 1900 to sketch battlefield scenes of the Boer War. It was at this time that he adopted the name Gwelo after a town in what was then Rhodesia. On his return to England he established a reputation as a landscape artist.

Towards the end of his life he became a great gardener and painted still-life flowers. Goodman considered himself a realist and took pride in recalling accurately what he was painting. During the 1930s, rose blooms were his favoured flowers.

"It is my opinion that this is when he painted this picture," says Hedley. Hedley says when valuing a painting it is important to consider market trends, size, condition and subject matter. An artist may paint the same subject many times in different situations, so some pictures may be more attractive than others.

"It is our opinion that this picture could fetch R15 000-R20 000."

This estimate is based on a digital image and subject to physical appraisal.

Arts Correspondent