The South African art fraternity gasped in amazement as a Tretchikoff put on reserve for R300 000 sold for
R 3. 740 M at a Sothebys auction in Cape Town on 26th May. Everyone has their own version for the reason for this extraordinary auction result, which brings Russian born so-called “King of Kitsch” into line with icons of the local art canon such as Irma Stern and Maggie Laubser.

Art Investment writer

The South African art fraternity gasped in amazement as a Tretchikoff put on reserve for
R300 000 sold for R3. 740 M
at a Sothebys auction in Cape Town on 26th May.

Everyone has their own version for the reason for this extraordinary auction result, which brings Russian born so-called “King of Kitsch” into line with august icons of the local art canon such as Irma Stern and Maggie Laubser.

Both these venerable hallowed females recently fetched what were considered record prices at recent London auction houses. But stocky blonde inimitable Tretch is enjoying what will probably be a whole series of last laughs from the grave as he considers how all his South African life time he was derided and resented by local art critics and snobs. All he ever said of local opinion was “Bullshit !” while his reputation grew ever greater world wide and his Chinese Girl became the best selling art print in history and continues selling.

Robert Brooks, Emiritus professor and former head of Fine Art at Rhodes University, said the R3.7-million sale trashed those critics and academics who had “muttered away” about Tretchikoff, whose work has previously been labelled kitsch and lacking in substance.
“He was accessible and he brightened people’s lives in the 1950s and 1960s.”
He explained the price leap as being related to art investment being in a “tremendously good way”. He said there was “a lot of money floating around looking for things to buy” but he said people were also looking back and seeing the value of Tretchikoff’s work. He said Tretchikoff had been the first to realise that money could be made from prints and had the ability to paint for the public in a way that made people feel important in that they were able to understand the meaning of his work
Brooks believes that the price achieved for The Fruits of Bali will result in a “total re-evaluation” because it would be difficult for anyone to ignore the kind of money that had been raised.

Andries Loots of 34 Long Art Gallery in Cape Town has another take on the high price. 34 Long auctioned Trechikoff’s “Dying Swan” two years ago just after the artist died and got R300 000 for this famous painting. Andries firmly believes that the Russians are buying heavily into art as are the Chinese. He does not think that “Fruits of Bali” is all that great a Tretchikoff work but this would not matter to the Russians.

“They are driving the art market at present. The Russians think of Tretchikoff as one of their own and they want his work back in Russia. There is enormous wealth there now - money totally no object and I believe that they will be looking for more Tretchies now. After all, Tretch has always been bigger anywhere else in the world but here. Everyone shunned him here as not being a truly South African artist but I reckon that his portraits of some of our African tribesmen and local people of colour are the finest representations of the genre you can find in South Africa’.

Graham Britz of Grahams Fine Art gallery, however, was loud in praise of “Fruits of Bali” “I think that this is an absolute classic, iconic work by a master painter. This is a definitive piece. The Balinese woman as the centre piece is so striking and so beautiful and the colours of the fruit glow intensely. I don’t believe that this is a flash in the pan price - I think we will see steadily increasing prices for Tretchikoff as long as they are works of this kind of quality”
An art auctioneer in Durban who prefers to remain anonymous and who has dealt often auctioned original Tretchikoffs believes that this astonishing price was part of a scam to raise the asking price for Tretchikoffs.

“Everyone knows what Brett Kebble did with his collection of Irma Sterns. He significantly raised the price of his Stern collection by having some of them auctioned and then bought for hugely inflated prices. In this way he dramatically increased the asking price for her works. I think the same thing has happened here. After all, why did the others on the auction go for average prices - why just this one for 10 times the estimate ?”
The same art expert knows of the well-know fan in Durban who is reputed to have the largest collection of original Tretchikoffs in the world, collected from the artist’s earliest days when this Durban man became an instant and undying fan of his work.
“I have been in touch with someone who knows him and this collector is totally ecstatic at the Sotheby’s result - naturally.......”

In quoting Ian Hunter of Sotheby’s Constantia Cape said:

“We were all very surprised but of course extremely pleased when Fruits of Bali achieved this record price over our estimate. We pegged it at R300 000 because ww ecoud nt find a sale price for Tretchikoff over R400 00 so we were abit of the conservative side.

All the others up sold well within their margins but I think this one exceeded all expectations because it is a picture that comfortable embraces all the strongest elements of the artist’s visual vocabularly. Tretch was well know for his love of baroque exoticism, glowing sensual colour, rich tropical massing of fruits or flowers, black naked beauty of human form....it’s all in this picture.”

(Art Times) Flash in the pan then, a once off or a foretaste of what iis to come for Tretchikoff sellrs and buyers of the future ?

Says Ian “Well, it is in my opinion an exception but I suppose we will get owners of his works phoning us and demanding no less than 3 mil for their paintings ! We’re used to that. In the same sale we had a record price for an Alexander Rose-Innes and for an Adriaan Boshoff. But as for Tretchikoff, it’s difficult to say: the barrier has been broken now, anything can happen as far as we’re concerned. With Tretchikoff, both the art and the artist, you can never take anything for granted”.

Ian confirmed that the painting had been bought by a South African. However the Art Times would like to not rule out that they could have acted on a local or international clients behalf.

Tretchikoff’s daughter Mimi, who was approached by SA Art Times for comment regarding the results remarked in true Tretchi spirit “about bloody time”