LOT 53: André Naudé – Green Table

ABOUT THE ARTIST

(SA 1950 – 2023)

André Naude was a painter, educator, printmaker. He judged national art competitions, curating, and spending time abroad for at least three decades.

These ventures have included group shows in America, Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East. This includes New York, Washington, Toronto, Paris, Hamburg, Leverkussen, Ribevac, Barcelona, Budapest, Bangladesh, and Beijing.

Naude has presented solo exhibitions at the Pretoria Art Museum, the University of Pretoria, AVA Gallery Cape Town, NSA Gallery Durban, the University of Johannesburg art gallery, ABSA gallery and Galeria Blau in Palma, Majorca.

His work can be found in the South African National Gallery in Cape Town – Durban Art Museum – Pretoria Art Museum – corporate collections such as ABSA collection – RMB collection – Anglo Gold Foundation – Amsterdam Rotterdam Bank – Old Mutual head office, London – Nando UK – University of Pretoria – Telkom South Africa – Tshwane University of Technology – Cite Internationale, Paris – University of Stellenbosch and several other institutions.

In 2006 Naude presented a solo show at Fried Art Contemporary, Pretoria. In April, he was the Festival Artist at the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival in Oudtshoorn and this show titled ‘Parade’ was then presented at the SASOL Museum, University of Stellenbosch. It traveled to Port Elizabeth in October 2006.

Naude worked at Atwood Press in Witrivier, preparing proofprints with Mark Atwood. Six new lithography editions were proof printed. To quote Lucia Burger who spoke at a solo show at the University of Johannesburg gallery:

‘Above all André Naude is a flirt. He cannot resist the seduction of forms and textures. Colour is for him the essence of the diversity, richness and the very soul of the Life of objects, nature and humanity. In his paintings, he handles the issues relating to culture with the panache that would make politicians blush. He refers to certain symbols and icons in a language which is unique and exclusively his own. He uses paint on any surface with the assurance and dexterity of a magician and he allows colours to compliment each other, blend and oppose with the confidence of an accomplished lover.’ Prof Keith Dietrich, head of the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Stellenbosch:

‘Irony is one of the crucial dimensions to his work, and in particular his sense of dark humour, crouched in a luscious though fragile veneer of paint that enchants and lures the viewer. Underneath the decorative, visceral, sensual and tactile surface of André’s painted sufaces lies a darker side to his reality as a South African. Dark humour, satire, and parody are directed toward the social norms of living in Pretoria. The alarming and absurd social conditions that he experiences in his home city are transformed into an ambiguous interplay between survival, optimism and hope. For André, his paintings express his ambivalent relationship with South Africa with its extreme splendour and feelings of hope and optimism on the one hand, and its extreme sense of absurdity, banality and despair on the other.’