Christo Coetzee (South Africa 1929-2000) | Untitled ,1962
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Notes : ABOUT THE ARTWORK Christo Coetzee was a prominent figure in the 20th-century global avant-garde movements, being closely associated with the leading experimental artists of Europe and Japan through his affiliation with Galerie Stadler in Paris during the mid-1950s and 1960s. Since 1951, he had lived in London, Paris and Spain. He also spent a year in Japan where he worked and exhibited with the famous Gutai group of artists. These associations had a lasting influence on his work, extending his experimental explorations of formal and spatial concepts in art. While living and working in Paris, Coetzee had a studio visit in 1962 from Danie van Niekerk of the Rembrandt Group, who was interested in commissioning a piece for The Peter Stuyvesant Collection. This collection was started in 1960 by Alexander Orlow (1918-2009), then Director of Turmac Tobacco Company (now part of the British American Tobacco Company), which made the popular Peter Stuyvesant brand of cigarettes. The acquisitions advisor for the collection at the time was the director of the Stedelijk Museum Willem Sandberg. Coetzee conceptualised a work that could be appreciated from all angles. To achieve this, he incorporated the idea of "gate waardeur mens kan sien" (holes that a person can see through) as his strategy. The resulting artwork became part of the collection and was displayed within the company's factory, visible to the employees. By 1994, when the collection was renamed the BAT Artventure Collection, it had become one of Europe's most highly regarded corporate art collections. COLLECTOR’S NOTES In 1961, the year before Christo Coetzee created this work, he formed part of the seminal Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) exhibition; The Art of Assemblage, presented in New York. This was also the year he presented his first solo exhibition in Paris with Galerie Stadler.The following year, in 1962, works by Coetzee were exhibited in l’Objet at the Louvre Museum in Paris. COLLECTIONS: The artist is represented in numerous local and international collections, notably, Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton; Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan; International Centre for Aesthetic Research, Turin; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town and the Javett Art Centre, Pretoria.
Condition_report : The overall condition is good. Surface cracks along the dark blue edge of the work. Minor surface dirt consistent with age.
