Drawing for City Deep (Landscape with Projection Screen)

William Kentridge
Drawing for City Deep (Landscape with Projection Screen), 2019
Charcoal and red pencil on paper
Work: 80 x 120.5 cm

William Kentridge's artistic practice, expressionist in nature, is entirely underpinned by drawing. He is perhaps best known for his series of eleven animated films, Drawings for Projection, the earliest of which was completed in 1989 and the most recent of which premiered in 2020. These hand-drawn films follow the narrative of fictional mining magnate, Soho Eckstein, his wife and her lover, Felix Teitlebaum. This saga is permeated with anecdotal elements from Kentridge's own life and the political events, which unfolded in South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy. The drawing for city deep is a charcoal and red pencil drawing made as part of Kentridge’s film City Deep - his eleventh from the Soho Chronicles series. Continuing on themes found throughout the body of work, particularly in Kentridge’s 1991 film Mine, this drawing explores the mining history of Johannesburg and its impact on the city.