Gerard Sekoto (1913-1993)

One of a series of monumental blue heads, possibly inspired by his ballpoint sketch of the South African singer Miriam Makeba (1960), painted by Sekoto in the 1960s: 'Just prior to [1963] Sekoto embarked on a subject and format that he was to revisit and re-work repeatedly until the mid-1970s. ... The series of busts that Sekoto produced beginning in 1960 were primarily of women, although there are a few isolated examples of male heads. Frequently they are executed using a blue palette. These busts, not dependent on direct observation of the individual sitter, are more abstracted and iconic than the earlier portrait studies, although there are perhaps vague resemblances in some instances with portraits of the artist's mother.' (L. Spiro, Gerard Sekoto: unsevered ties, Johannesburg Art Gallery exhibition catalogue, Johannesburg, 1989, p.55)