William Kentridge: Domestic Scenes

This book documents, for the first time, the entire 54 images-as well as an additional 65 plate progressions not previously known to exist-in William Kentridge’s important early series of etchings and aquatints Domestic Scenes (1980). One of today’s most respected contemporary artists, Kentridge was only 25 years old and relatively unknown when he made these images which are pivotal in how they shaped his thinking, studio practice and conceptual approach. Presenting a range of human interactions in domestic environments and revealing influences from Matisse to Francis Bacon, from Giacomo Balla to Niki de Saint Phalle, the prints receive in this book fascinating new commentary from Kentridge, who shares his working methods as well as personal memories of the prints’ subjects and creation. Framed by detailed research by Warren Siebrits, the compiler of Kentridge’s upcoming catalogue raisonne of prints and posters, Domestic Scenes provides some of the earliest evidence of the artist stalking the drawing : returning to the etching plate time and again to make additions and alterations.

I also think that I am now ready for some good etching work-one of the things I am good at is quick first-time-right or throw-it-away work, and etching rather than painting will be a way of working from this strength. - William Kentridge, December 1978