Walking Man, 2000
linocut on paper, number 11 from an edition of 25
251.0
x 101.0
cm
Signed ‘W. Kentridge’ (lower right) and editioned (lower left)
SOLD
This work was published by David Krut Fine Art, London and Johannesburg and printed by Artist Proof Studio, Johannesburg.
Provenance
Annandale Galleries, Sydney
Private collection, Sydney
Another from this edition is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York
Exhibition
Another from the edition was shown in
'Impressions from South Africa 1965 to Now', The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 23 March-29 August 2011
Literature
Another from the edition was illustrated in
J. Hecker, 'William Kentridge - Trace: Prints from the Museum of Modern Art', New York, 2010, plate 13
J. Hecker, 'Impressions from South Africa: 1965 to Now', New York, 2011, Illus. p.28
R. Krauss, R. Malbert and K. McCrickard, 'A Universal Archive: Kentridge as Printmaker', London, 2012, illus. p.65
K. McCrickard, 'William Kentridge', London, 2012
Leading South African artist, William Kentridge, is a poetic master within a historically political country. His abiding interest in the formal and thematic possibilities of transformation is a subject that runs deep throughout his oeuvre, most notable in the constantly evolving imagery of his hand drawn films and evocative printmaking.
‘Walking Man’, one of Kentridge’s largest monumental relief prints, was editioned at Artist Proof Studio on South Africa’s largest press. This is a captivating image made from stark contrasts and crisp, pattern-making lines.
The unforgettable image of a man who carries his possessions as he walks and - pressed against the elements - begins to morph into a tree, calls to mind Apartheid marchers and uprooted communities. The undeniable impact of this image is testament to the balance Kentridge always strikes between the political, poetic, whimsical and personal.
Linocut is an important cultural practice in South Africa and one significant to the artist who has said: ‘In South Africa, linocut is the primary form of printmaking, because linoleum is a very cheap material and the tools to make it are very easy …And there’s also a root to linocutting from the various missionaries who brought the technique to South Africa and a link to the German Expressionists whose style obviously comes back to African masks. And so there’s a kind of circularity. It occurred to me that if etching and engraving have to do with the split in northern Europe between the Reformation and other ways of being, then linocutting corresponds to anti-colonialism, certainly in South Africa, to something that comes out of that struggle.’ (William Kentridge in J. Hecker, ‘William Kentridge –Trace: Prints from The Museum of Modern Art’, New York, 2010)