Steve Kretzmann: If there was any doubt that contemporary South African sculpture could hold its own in the international art market, it was blown out of the water by the spectacular prices Dylan Lewis’s works fetched at Christies three years ago.
A 2007 auction of 75 bronze sculptures of wild cats and animals by the Stellenbosch-based artist sold out, fetching an astonishing R28 million in 90 minutes, an achievement that made the art world sit up and take new notice of a sculptor who might have been derided by critics as little more than a wildlife artist with an interesting technique.
But whatever purists might have had to say, the public pockets applauded the way his rough, masculine, raw application of clay translated in bronze and complemented the way he seems to sometimes defy the laws of physics to freeze the kinetic energy contained in the movement of his beasts.
Though he is among the most sought-after sculptors in South Africa and abroad, he is rather modest about it. “I’ve been fortunate to have ‘some’ success,” he says.

“I had no idea the Christies auction would be so successful.”
And while the fortune and attendant fame is not rejected, he’s ambivalent about it.
“It (commercial success) is a two-edged sword. It gives me the resources to pursue dreams and ideas that I might otherwise not be able to. But the shadow side of that success is that what makes you successful becomes difficult to break away from, it becomes difficult to pursue ideas which might not be so successful or well received.”
But he appears to have dealt with that shadow. His latest, and growing, body of work, as seen in his latest exhibiton Untamted at Kirstenbosch is a departure from the animal form that has dominated his output, toward representing the human figure.
This “probably had something to do with wanting to express things at a deeper level which couldn’t be expressed through the animal form alone”.
It is not a hasty move. Just because he made millions and commands high prices does not mean Lewis is going to indulge in misguided flights of fancy. But neither is he sticking to the tried and tested, and attempting to milk the market for all it’s worth.
In fact everything about Lewis, excepting the wildness contained in his sculptures, suggests a thoughtful person.
His commercial success, and how art and the business of art interact, is certainly something he’s pondered.
Art as a good investment is something he feels the recent and ongoing economic crisis has highlighted.
“Investors are not so sure about investments that once seemed very secure, and art, in comparison, seems a more secure thing than it might have once appeared.”
He believes that although art was not insulated from the economic crisis, it is surviving with a better track record than many traditional investments.
“High quality, flagship work”, particularly, has held its value, he believes, and there are still buyers who are willing to pay for it, although less of them perhaps than previously.
And sculpture has also benefited from an increase in popularity – although the reason for its popularity he cannot account for – that “certainly has lifted the prices it fetches, not by 100 percent, but by about 30 percent or so”.
He has also thought on the philosophy of what is popularly viewed to be art’s nemesis: the commercial realm.
On the one hand, he says, there’s the “fairytale ideal” that art is an expression of true freedom, and that business is it’s polar opposite.
But the reality is that life consists of “push and pull” factors and one has to continually balance opposing forces.
Finding the balance between the need to sell in order to survive, and not let that need affect your creativity, is not the sole province of art either, he says, it exists in many fields of endeavour to a greater or lesser degree.
And the commercial imperative is important, “it imparts its own energy and offers a reward, it makes things possible”.
“The art world would like to see commercialisation as a pariah, full stop. But I think some of the greatest art work occupies the middle space between the commercial imperative and artistic expression… even Michelangelo, he had his arse kicked because the client (the church) had a deadline.”
An example of how expression can lie idle if there is no deadline or rumbling stomach demanding to be filled, is the changing attitude to state support for artists in the Netherlands.
He said his interest was piqued by an article he read while in Holland “about four years ago”, which stated the government were thinking of scrapping the grants and social support provided to artists to relieve them of commercial pressures in the belief they’d create better art. Instead, they weren’t producing much art at all.
“The commercial imperative is necessary but too much of it also takes away the integrity and passion of the artist, but alternatively, without it, the artist lacks the resources to work. You’ve got to walk that line.”