Alexis Preller

For those familiar with Alexis Preller’s imaginative talent and his powers as a superb colourist in oil on canvas, this somewhat sombre study of a Pondo woman in charcoal (plate 37) may seem on first inspection to be an uncharacteristic work. It dates from 1938, the same year that he joined the New Group and exhibited with them on their very first show held in Cape Town in May of that year. Preller had recently returned to South Africa from his studies in Paris in 1937. In the latter part of 1937 he spent a period camping in Swaziland where he produced a body of work that was later exhibited in Johannesburg. Read More…