Freida Lock; South African 1902-1962; Still Life With Flowers
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Notes : Freida Lock, a founder member of the New Group in Cape Town in 1938, is best-known for painting still lifes with flowers, domestic interiors, and Zanzibari portraits and street scenes. Unlike many of the still lifes which show the front view of a jug or vase of a single type of flower - lilies, hydrangeas, or daisies, typically - the present lot depicts a bowl of mixed flowers on a table, viewed directly from above. The bright array of pink, purple, orange, yellow and white blooms is offset by a bright blue and white plaid tablecloth against an acid yellow background, with a pile of postcards, letters or books off to the right, Berman notes that Lock 'seemed to enjoy particularly the chalky tone and texture obtained from zinc-white applied in thick impasto; dense areas of cream, pale grey and oyster pink as well as unadulterated white itself are regular features of her paintings … and [her] artistic sensibility proclaims itself in her sure eye for the dramatic colour accent ... and contrasts which animate the scene'.1 1. Esmé Berman (1983) Art & Artists of South Africa, Cape Town: AA Balkema, page 268.
Condition_report : Cracking throughout and minor surface dirt.
