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Preller, Alexis
(b Pretoria, 6 Sept 1911; d Pretoria, 13 Dec 1975). South African painter. He trained at Westminster School (1934), London, and under Othon Friesz at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière (1937), Paris, but found his true mentors in Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh, whose works he studied in European museums. He adapted stylistic elements from Gauguin’s colourful Tahitian compositions to paintings on African themes such as the Garden of Eden (Monte Carlo no. 2) (1937; Pretoria, A. Mus.). Gradually he gave shape to a more personal style and a compendium of symbolic images derived from nature, ritual artefacts and African decorative devices. By the late 1940s he was creating luminously coloured and compelling mythic compositions, such as Basuto Allegory (1947; E. Berman priv. col., see Berman). Preller’s vision was further enriched by new awareness of two highly divergent artistic legacies: the frescoes of Piero della Francesca, which influenced his handling of light and spatial structure, and the formalized imagery of Ancient Egyptian murals, which inspired his developing new symbolic forms. Notable subsequent works include Hieratic Women (1956; Johannesburg, A.G.).
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