Tretchikoff (1969)

Born in Russia, Vladimir Griegorovich Tretchikoff spent most of his 93-year lifespan in South Africa, which he reached after wartime years in Java in the mid-1940s. Long ignored or derided by the so-called South African art establishment, Tretchikoff for many years earned more from his art in his lifetime than any painter since Picasso. Although written and published 37 years before his death, Timmins\'s admiring and admirable book features much of the artist\'s most famous work. Tretchikoff\'s Cape Town friends included Timmins himself, here unusually author and publisher, Stuart Cloete, who contributed the foreword and Anton Rupert, for whom he designed the Rembrandt logo in 1948.

Marred only by minor repairs to the dustjacket, this elephant folio format book is otherwise unmarked and in pristine condition. The grey cloth-boards, with Tretchikoff\'s signature in black on the front cover, are as-new, as are the black endpapers, double at the front with a deep-etched frontispiece photograph of the artist\'s head, and single-sided at the back. The unnumbered pages comprise 12 pp of illustrated prelims and introduction on smooth wove stock and 96 pp of colour reproductions of the painter\'s work on gloss art paper. In short, a desirable copy.