Lucas SITHOLE
1931 - 1994
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Unfinished works as recorded
As rightful copyright holders to all works by Lucas SITHOLE, The Haenggi Foundation Inc. in Johannesburg arranged for all works then known to exist, both finished and unfinished, to be collected from the artist's home in Kwa-Thema and his second house near Pongola. The works from Kwa-Thema were first stored in Mr Martin C. Gishen's office who had been the family lawyer and the Estate's executor.
The help of well-known art historian, Dr. Elza Miles from Johannesburg, was then enlisted to collect and record all unfinished works from Lucas SITHOLE's last home near Pongola and from the office of the Estate's lawyer.
These were then displayed at the premises formerly occupied by Gallery 21, Victory House, Harrison Street, Johannesburg, for one day during July 1994; the Pretoria Art Museum chose half of the items, the remainder were then donated to the University of Fort Hare.
Images of all the unfinished works as recorded by Dr Elza Miles will be available shortly, on request. A few can be seen in the background of the image showing some of the works on display at the Pretoria Art Museum.
Additional unfinished works by Lucas SITHOLE discovered at Kwa-Thema in 2005
In 2005, Johannes Buti Sithole, the eldest son of Lucas T. Sithole, who lives in the family house at Kwa-Thema, found 6 hitherto unknown works buried under the rubble in the garden. One was a bronze of a Mother and Child, the others were 5 heads, of which three were in wood, two in sand stone, all unfinished or reworked, mostly unsigned. The Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg, was authorised to sell the one bronze recorded under LS7003.3, properly repaired, but not the others being part of the Estate and intended for a museum.
See list of these 5 works - the unfinished items - as a PDF document.
Another unfinished unsigned work by Lucas SITHOLE brought for auction in 2011, then again in 2013 and 2014!
In 2011, the son of Lucas T. Sithole who lives in the family house at Kwa-Thema brought to Stephan Welz & Co., Johannesburg, this panel he found:
Please click on image for better view!
The auctioneers catalogued this work to be auctioned in Johannesburg on 16th August, 2011 as follows :
THE COUPLE
unsigned
mixed media on board
163 by 67cm
The copyright holders have no objection to the work being auctioned on behalf of the Lucas T. Sithole family members,
will however not include it in the Master Registry, for the following reasons:
The work is unsigned and undated, the mixed media/board appears to be two works, i.e. a later heavy impasto on an original background work - at the top right hand one can see a different technique, a woman's head with "doek" and a foot where the original signature may have been - what appears now to be the scratched out signature. Lucas would normally have signed his mixed media on the top right corner, the bottom right and sometimes he also signed across the strip that appears in the middle of the extreme right. In brief,
this work is unsigned, unfinished and unrecorded and should never have left the studio or been put on auction!
It should have been handed over to the copyright holders, The Haenggi Foundation Inc. in 1994 who distributed all unfinished works by Lucas SITHOLE to the Pretoria Art Gallery and the University of Fort Hare.
It is however by the hand of Lucas T. Sithole.
Lucas Sithole never released a work that was not properly signed!
No bid was received for this lot (Lot 377) offered by Welz & Co. Johannesburg on 16th August, 2011.
The same work was offered by Westgate Walding Auctioneers, Johannesburg, on 27th November, 2013, Lot 481, and again on 1st October, 2014 Lot 459 (est. ZAR5000/7000).