Title: Portrait of a girl
Medium: Oil on canvas
Signed: Preller 43 top right
Unframed: 33cm x 25.5cm
Framed: 68cm x 58cm
“Whatever I am after it is contained by an African shape…” – Alexis Preller (Berman 2009:139).
From the beginning of Preller’s career, he was searching for a form that might symbolise the intrinsic character of Africa. Esme Berman (2009:139) explained his search for an African form as follows: “It was not surface appearances, but rather something far more elusive that concerned him. He aimed to find a means of giving visual form to an abstraction – his perception of a spirit utterly unlike that of his European antecedents.”
Alexis was fascinated by the indigenous traditions of people living in Africa during a time when the minority ‘white’ population did not really have any insight or interest in the ancient cultures and traditions of Africa. He was stirred by the mystique of ‘the other’ and desperately wanted to identify himself with Africa and not just represent these cultures as an onlooker or commentator.
This proved to be very idealistic and although he respected and deeply cared for these people, he was still a product of his Western and European heritage.
In the painting, Portrait of a girl, Preller’s distinct use of colour can be seen. His paintings have a luminous quality that he achieved through balancing complementary colours -the blue and yellow. Unlike his expressionist counterparts he did not use primary colours (Berman 2009:90). His palette was very personal, and the greenish-blue colour known as “Preller blue” by critics were made by the artist and was not commercially available (Berman 2009:90).
