Francois Krige (South African, 1913-1994) Lesotho Village Scene
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Notes : The pendant painting to Basotho village scene, sold in these rooms in March 2011, Lesotho village scene is one of two works painted by Francois Krige in 1979 which fondly recalls his travels to the area in the late 1930s. By 1979 Krige had enjoyed a full and varied life and began, with the wisdom of an older man, to look back over his life, revisiting his most precious moments and capturing them for the future on canvas. As a young man in 1937, Krige's family moved to Bethlehem in the Free State. He visited them often and enjoyed long walks and hikes in what was then Basutoland (today Lesotho). Lesotho's people fascinated him and he filled his sketchbooks with figure studies. In 1939 Krige embarked on a trip to Lesotho with his brother Uys, Walter Battiss, and Terence McCaw. Led by a Basotho guide, the four young men spent a week travelling through the mountains. "The painting is stylised with bright Basotho blankets adding a series of patterns to the composition, and there is a romantic, dreamy feel enhanced by the narrow range of hue and the colourful layered mountains. The image comes across as a painted memory: the figures even seem to float ethereally above the ground."BIBLIOGRAPHY:J. Fox, The Life and Art of Francois Krige, (Fernwood, 2000), p. 105
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