Francois Krige Centenary

David Krut Projects is pleased to present an exhibition of works on paper by Francois Krige, curated by Justin Fox, to mark the centenary of the artist’s birth. 

Krige, who was born in 1913 and died in 1994, is renowned in South Africa as a painter who stuck to the Post-Impressionist style which formed early in his career, influenced by his travels and studies in Europe and his involvement with the New Group. This group of artists, formed in the 1930s in South Africa, had a significant impact on the local art scene, and included many other well-known local painters, such as Walter Batiss, Frieda Lock and Alexis Preller, whose time abroad had also heavily influenced their work. However, one area of Krige’s oeuvre that is as yet unexplored is the large body of work that he produced on paper – drawings in charcoal, pencil and pen; watercolour, oil and gouache paintings on paper; and many acc omplished etchings.

Krige was born into a culturally sophisticated family in the Klein Karoo. He decided to pursue a career as an artist, beginning his studies in 1927 at the Michaelis School of Fine art at the University of Cape Town, and continuing as an observer and student in Spain, Belgium, Italy, Germany, and Austria. In 1936, he returned to South Africa, settling for a short time in Johannesburg before leaving again in 1941 for Libya, Egypt, Syria and Italy as an English forces’ Wartime Artist during the Second World War. 1944 saw his return to South Africa, and Cape Town, and from 1946 until 1967, Krige took a number of study trips to Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia and the West Coast. In 1967 he moved to Montagu, where he would remain until his death in 1994, and these years saw him making a valuable contribution to South African painting in the form of landscape and still life works. Throughout his life and travels, however, his drawings and paintings on paper remained a vital part of his practice, allowing him to capture the visual observations he was making, as well as hone his skill as a sensitive and excellent draughtsman.

Alongside self-portraits showing the artist in the beginning of his career, all the way to the end, this exhibition presents 25 of the most significant works on paper over 7 decades, and aims to provide glimpses into the life of the artist, the places he visited and the stories that make up his life. Justin Fox, curator of the exhibition and expert on the life and work of Krige, has provided a narrative for each of the works included in the show. The story that emerges, once the works and texts are woven together, offers a counterpoint to the narrative of Krige’s most famously celebrated paintings and an intimate view on the development of the man as a creative individual personality. The exhibition also aims to expose lesser-known and perhaps, because of this, some of the most interesting works as moments in the artist’s long career.