Lot 251: Carola Brotherton - Midlands Landscape

Carola Brotherton
Midlands Landscape
signed and dated 1969; signed, inscribed with the medium and the title on the reverse
oil on canvas
45 by 54,5cm

Carola Brotherton trained under Jack and Jane Heath at the University of Natal, before becoming a friend and colleague in the Department in the late 1960s. Carola and Jane became particularly close, and with their old, customized Land Rover, made numerous sketching and painting trips into the then wilder parts of Natal. Neither artist moved too far away from natural representation, but on occasion each pursued a gentle, selective and decorative abstraction. Both Water Plants (Lot 250) and Midlands Landscape (Lot 251) catch the artists in this mood: autumn leaves caught on a stream’s surface, and a dry, dusky Midlands view are paraphrased using overlapping, geometric segments of earthy colours, all arranged according to a flat, unpredictable, sophisticated pattern.