SPECIAL EDITION: Footballer - Tretchikoff Print

A special Edition colour-way and print limited to ten copies. Tretchikoff was keen on portraying rugby or tennis players, but Football, also known as Football Players, is probably the only soccer-themed painting in his oeuvre. The artist has often been denounced for painting only what the public liked, but the accusation is hardly fair. When Tretchikoff did paint to please, it was usually a calculated gamble. He needed a special reason to choose footballers as his subject.

Dare, the owner of two Tretchikoff canvases, recounted: ‘He was doing a rugby painting, and I said to him, ‘It’s no good, that. If you’re coming to Birmingham, you’ll have to have a round ball.’ ‘What do you mean?’ Tretchi says to me. ‘Soccer’, I said. Three weeks later, he started it and here it is.’

In this painting, we see a game between Birmingham City and Celtic. The attacking player wears the blue and white home colours of the Birmingham team. Dare, a director of City football club, opined that the player resembled Keith Coombes, the son of the Birmingham City chairman Clifford Coombes. Under the leadership of Coombes Snr, the team reached an FA Cup semi-final in the 1971–72 season. Keith Coombes later succeeded his father as chairman of the club.

Football, a painting that was meant to cater to English tastes, returned to Tretchikoff’s home country and entered a South African private collection.