Francois Krige (South African, 1913-1994) Krisjan Sleeping
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Notes : Krisjan, an old drifter, was the subject of several Krige paintings. A charcoal study for the present lot is illustrates in Fox (p.123, fig.2)."The nomadic Krisjan Swart...usually appears with his billy-can, staff and sack of belongings, tramping the Karoo roads in velskoene and greatcoat. Krige gives him the look of an itinerant preacher or apostle, a lonely soul making his was across the arid landscape. The old man slept in the veld at night and was a loner, something which would have struck a chord with François." (Fox 2000, p.100)"Krisjan is King Lear. His majesty and his presence fill the cloth. Krisjan is a deposed ruler seen through the eyes of Rembrandt. He comes from a long way down the ages. Then François Krige paints him as Montagu knows him: a hang-about, bum, drifter, beggar, sleeping wherever the alcohol closes in upon him in rain or in sun, a sad nomad with filthy rags twisted around the head, an oversized and shapeless and torn overcoat, all his belongings in the one bag slung across his shoulder."(Breytenbach 1998, p.108)LITERATURE: J. Fox, The life and art of Francois Krige, (Vlaeberg, 2000), illus. p.111B. Breytenbach, Dog Heart, a travel memoir, (Cape Town, 1998)
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