2 Comments:

 Miss Wong said...

When I was a child in Cape Town in the 1950's, Tretchikoff was our - that is, The Cape Peninsula's -
Salvador Dali: Famous, Successful, Controversial.
Imagine a bent timepiece lost on the step next to a weeping orchid and you'll get the picture. But I never saw any of his famous Department Store Exhibitions. What I do remember though is a moment when one of the big stores in Adderley Street decorated a lift to resemble the cabin of a space ship. The operator wore a space suit, and counted down to zero after announcing, " All aboard for Rocket to Mars" and sealing the entry-port. During ascent children could gaze out through portholes at the planets, stars and comets painted on the sides of the lift shaft. Arrival at the Toy Department Floor was announced as a landing on Mars, and when the doors opened, there it was , The Red Planet. A total illusion. I can't remember what they were selling. Surely not all this trouble to flog a couple of hundred tin rockets and flying saucers? But I know that somehow my muddled childhood conspired to mix this experience with the memory of an overheard mention of a Tretchi show, so that I grew up convinced that this was his show, like some mad theatre set designer. Anyway, it was painted in his hyper-insistent style.
After all this build up, his end has sadly come as no surprise. Like the Soviet President Brezhnev, whose death arrived like a confimation of long forgotten rumour, so too did it seem that Tretchi, if still alive, had passed from us long ago.

9:56 PM  

 Bob said...

Geez, Miss Wong. That must be the nicest obit ever.

3:26 PM  

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