Gerard Sekoto (South African, 1913-1993)Boy with a turban
signed 'G SEKOTO' (lower right)
oil on canvas
61 x 50cm (24 x 19 11/16in).注脚Provenance
A private collection, France.

Sekoto left South Africa for Paris in 1947. Over the next decade the warm colours of his oils altered to a cool palette of blue and black that was to characterise his work for the rest of his life.

This oil dates from the late 1950s when Sekoto painted a number of very similar portraits of this subject. It illustrates the artist's shift in styles: the bold yellow and red turban and warm face of the subject relate to his past paintings, and the vivid blue background points to his future work.

An almost identical gouache from the early 1960s was included in the retrospective, Sekoto: 'Unsevered Ties' at Johannesburg Art Gallery in 1989 (catalogue no.78, illustrated p.85).