- Title: SOUTH AFRICA: Artwork of the 'people's painter' exhibited at Cape Town museum
- Date: 16th June 2011
- Summary: CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA (JUNE 09, 2011) (REUTERS) VIEW WITH TABLE MOUNTAIN WITH CLOUD MOVING OVER EXTERIOR OF IZIKO MUSEUM VARIOUS OF BOOKS ON DISPLAY WITH TRETCHIKOFF, THE PEOPLE'S PAINTER AND FAMOUS CHINESE GIRL ON FRONT COVER FAMOUS TRETCHIKOFF PAINTING OF CHINESE GIRL IN MUSEUM VARIOUS OF PEOPLE LOOKING AT A COLLECTION OF TRETCHIKOFF PAINTINGS VARIOUS OF TRETCHIKOFF PAINTINGS CURATOR OF TRETCHIKOFF EXHIBITION, ANDREW LAMPRECHT SPEAKING TO GROUP OF PEOPLE PEOPLE LISTENING ANDREW ADDRESSING GROUP (SOUNDBITE) (English) ANDREW LAMPRECHT, TRETCHIKOFF EXHIBITION CURATOR SAYING: "Very, very few people under the age of 50 in South Africa would have ever seen an original Tretchikoff you know, because they all went into private collections, institutional collections didn't buy them and they rarely... haven't been seen. Literally never before has such a large collection of Tretchikoff's been brought together, certainly never such a representative sampling from his most famous work, the "Chinese Girl", to really preliminary sketches and archival material, even the dress that the Chinese Girl was wearing. Its an all encompassing exhibition and the viewer response have been very good and phenomenal." VARIOUS OF PEOPLE LOOKING AT PAINTINGS (SOUNDBITE) (English) ANDREW LAMPRECHT, TRETCHIKOFF EXHIBITION CURATOR SAYING: "He also really was a pioneer of mass production of prints, he sold literally millions of prints in his lifetime and that's actually really where he got his fortune from. He was alleged to be the richest painter in the world after Picasso but he was hardly recognised by the established arts community and that's why we call this exhibition, 'Tretchikoff, the people's painter'. This is the first time that his work is being exhibited in quantity in a formal gallery." MORE OF PEOPLE LOOKING AT PAINTINGS VARIOUS OF A GROUP OF STUDENTS LOOKING AT PAINTINGS (SOUNDBITE) (English) LETHAMAGA RICHARD MABULA, ART STUDENT SAYING: "You can see realism in his works and at the same time you can see life, he is not completing his works, like he is not painting everything to be detailed like that but you can still see the skill, you can still see the technique, so like Africa being a country where like the art before wasn't as detailed, the colours were normally flat, you can see like, it's inspiring because that's what we do, we do different arts, we mix those different techniques, we mix those different movements, those different ideas and make them as one." VARIOUS OF PAINTINGS
- Embargoed: 1st July 2011 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: South Africa, South Africa
- Country: South Africa
- Reuters ID: LVAC91A9XG8HROT3AGXUWKYANQYZ
- Story Text: An exhibition which showcases a wealth of unpublished materials as well as re-productions of Vladimir Tretchikoff's popular paintings opened at the Iziko Museum, in Cape Town, South Africa this month.
The exhibition, showed some of Tretchikoff's most famous work, including the mass-printed "Chinese Girl" -- the first major retrospective that earned him the label "king of kitsch".
Kitsch is a derogatory term used to describe works created merely for commercial purposes rather than works created for self-expression.
Tretchikoff's book of the same name serves as an accompanying text to the exhibition.
Curator of the Tretchikoff Exhibition, Andrew Lamprecht said the exhibition was targeted at introducing the youth to Tretchikoff's original works.
"Very, very few people under the age of 50 in South Africa would have ever seen an original Tretchikoff you know, because they all went into private collections, institutional collections didn't buy them and they rarely... haven't been seen. Literally never before has such a large collection of Tretchikoff's been brought together, certainly never such a representative sampling from his most famous work, the "Chinese Girl", to really preliminary sketches and archival material, even the dress that the Chinese Girl was wearing. Its an all encompassing exhibition and the viewer response have been very good and phenomenal," said Lamprecht From the 1940s to 1970s Tretchikoff received unprecedented coverage in the media and his exhibitions still hold international records for attendance.
Despite this, he received criticism from many in the established art community who saw his art as pedestrian and kitsch.
Since that time, many younger generations of artists and critics have championed Tretchikoff as a 'people's painter' who was ahead of his time in many aspects of his art and its marketing.
"He also really was a pioneer of mass production of prints, he sold literally millions of prints in his lifetime and that's actually really where he got his fortune from. He was alleged to be the richest painter in the world after Picasso but he was hardly recognised by the established arts community and that's why we call this exhibition, 'Tretchikoff, the people's painter'. This is the first time that his work is being exhibited in quantity in a formal gallery," said Lamprecht.
Tretchikoff was a self-taught artist whose inspiration came from real things. He painted mostly portraits, still life and animals, based on his experiences living in China, Malaysia and later South Africa.
"You can see realism in his works and at the same time you can see life, he is not completing his works, like he is not painting everything to be detailed like that but you can still see the skill, you can still see the technique, so like Africa being a country where like the art before wasn't as detailed, the colours were normally flat, you can see like, it's inspiring because that's what we do, we do different arts, we mix those different techniques, we mix those different movements, those different ideas and make them as one," said Lethamaga Richard Mabula who an art student in Cape Town.
Tretchikoff died in Cape Town in 2006, having lived in South Africa for over 60 years.
He was born in Petropavlovsk, Russia in 1913 but moved to China during the Russian Revolution. He later moved to Singapore with his wife where he opened an art school.
During the Second World War, he secretly worked for the British Ministry of Information as a propaganda artist.
He fled to South Africa in 1946, but not before being attacked, captured and imprisoned by the Japanese along the way.
He began producing prints of his paintings for display in department stores rather than in art galleries although he continued to exhibit, with 252 exhibitions around the world attended by over two million people.
His American exhibitions rivalled those of Picasso and over one million people saw his paintings in that country alone.
In 1961 he exhibited at 'Harrods' in London, one of the world's most famous luxury stores, but finding the gallery too small, was allowed to use the ground floor as an exhibition space -- 205,000 people attended the exhibition.
The home of this exhibition, the Iziko South African National Gallery is symbolic in that it is arguably the most important art institution in the country that has never, until this year, acquired any work of Tretchikoff's. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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