LONDON.- Bonhams is to hold its first sale dedicated to works by the radical South African artist William Kentridge (b1955). A Focus on William Kentridge will take place on Tuesday 15 November at Bonhams New Bond Street, London. The sale is led by Colonial Landscape - Waterfall estimated at £300,000-500,000.

The drawing is one of several created by Kentridge between 1995-1996 for his Colonial Landscape series. This had its origins in the award-winning play Faustus in Africa which he co-wrote with the Handspring Puppet Company and directed in South Africa in 1995. The drama told of how Faust pillaged Africa in return for the sale of his soul to the devil. Kentridge built on this idea by looking at and reworking depictions of Southern African landscapes in the era of colonisation specially the 1891 publication Africa and Its Exploration: As Told by its Explorers by Mungo Park, David Livingstone and others.

Helene Love-Allotey, Head of Sale for Modern and Contemporary African Art, said: “Kentridge saw these images as romanticised and idealistic visions of the Southern African landscape, that disguised the exploitative nature and brutality behind colonial rule. In Colonial Landscape - Waterfall the artist has added touches which point to the exploitation and despoilation of the land – of a large red circle which dominates the image, surveyors’ marks and a megaphone and pylon on the horizon.”

William Kentridge was born in Johannesburg in 1955 to a family of Lithuanian descent. His parents' dedicated involvement in the fight against apartheid in South Africa would have a deep and lasting impact on the artist, setting him apart from many of his white peers from a young age, and heavily informing his work. Kentridge completed a degree in Politics and African History in Johannesburg, before turning to art and theatre. This unconventional path would go on to influence his practice both aesthetically and intellectually, with his work crossing and combining mediums – though with South African culture and identity remaining at the heart of his practice.




Kentridge's bold artistic vision has seen him become one of the world's most sought-after artists by museums and collectors alike. His work can be found in the collections of some of the most prestigious museums in the world, including the MoMA, New York, Tate Modern, London, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago among many others.

Other highlights of the sale, which consists of 20 lots, include:

·Soho in Bed with Rhinoceros. The drawing dates from 1991 and is from Mine, the second of Kentridge's animated films. It was used as the final sequence when the Rhinoceros tenderly nuzzles at the out-stretched hand of the besuited industrialist Soho Eckstein. Kentridge himself has said of his filmed drawings: “A film of the drawing holds each moment. And of course, often, as a drawing proceeds, interest shifts from what was originally central, to something that initially appeared incidental. Filming enables me to follow this process of vision and revision as it happens.” Estimate: £300,000-500,000.

·Untitled (Nude walking with towel), 1991. Estimate: £60,000-80,000

·Untitled (Two Drawings from Weighing and Wanting), 1997-98. Estimate: £30,000-50,000