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Breakthrough moments: Strauss & Co sale includes formative works by key artists

20 Feb 2018

South African painters active during the pre-and post-war years have enjoyed considerable favour with South African collectors. There is particular excitement at Strauss & Co around four paintings made between 1939 and 1959, each from a formative moment in the early careers of Peter Clarke, Erik Laubscher, Alexis Preller and Gerard Sekoto.

Painted in 1939, Sekoto’s The Donkey Water Carrier (estimate R1 – R1.5 million) dates from the artist’s foundational Sophiatown period (1939-42). This work, depicting a cart-drawn water tank offers a fine elaboration of Sekoto’s emergent realist style and unobtrusive manner as an observer of everyday life. The painting was included on an important survey exhibition of Sekoto’s work at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 1989.

An acquaintance of Sekoto when he lived in Johannesburg, Preller has been a name to conjure with at auction. Strauss & Co’s March sale includes Preller’s 1940 oil, A Still Life of Lilies (estimate R500 000 – R700 000). Wilhelm van Rensburg, an art specialist with Strauss & Co, notes: “Preller’s use of colour is exceptional, and his intricate and intriguing compositions showcase his distinctive iconography and personal symbolism, which included his so-called ‘household gods’.”

A 1952 painting by Laubscher, Still Life with Coffee Pot and Fruit (estimate R1.5 – R2 million), sees this Paris-trained artist use a well-known genre scene in service of declaring his personal style. Painted a year after Laubscher’s return to South Africa from Paris, this confidently detailed School of Paris picture also captures Laubscher at the edge of an important transition – he would shortly devote his career to landscape painting.

Widely admired for his graphic style and social realist subject matter, Clarke’s 1959 gouache on paper, Tree, Eroded Bank and Birds, Teslaarsdal (estimate R400 000 – R600 000), dates from his influential Tesselaarsdal period. Clarke first visited this village below the Kleinrivier Mountains near Caledon in 1949. Over the next decade he frequently returned for lengthy stays during which he herded sheep and painted the “ordinary people” he stayed with. These encounters distilled his social vision.

Strauss & Co’s March sale comes shortly after its dedicated contemporary art sale, held during the week of Cape Town Art Fair in February. A burgeoning category underpinned by robust sales in the primary market, Strauss & Co’s has since 2009 established reliable benchmark prices for important artists like Wim Botha, Robert Hodgins and William Kentridge.

Kentridge’s interest in the iconography of Ancient Egypt, which dominates his 2004 charcoal drawing Latopolis (estimate R1 – R1.5 million), originated out of an invitation to produce Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute (1791) for La Monnaie, the federal opera house in Brussels, Belgium. Kentridge’s set designs referenced Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s Egyptian-themed set designs for an 1816 production. Latopolis features two differently rendered images of the Temple of Khnum, a red sandstone structure that was one of the last Egyptian temples ever built.

Botha’s 2011 bust depicting two lovers bonded in a kiss, Fuse (estimate R600 000 – R800 000), slots into a worldly tradition of sculpture that encompasses Hindu temple figures and Auguste Rodin’s iconic marble, The Kiss (1882). Botha is well known for his appropriation, mimicry and distortion of well-known symbols and icons – what the artist describes as “saturated images”.

Hodgins also alludes to classical western art in his late-career oil, Study After Michelangelo No. 1 (estimate R350 000 – R500 000), which is based on Michelangelo’s drawings towards an incomplete fresco depicting the Battle of Cascina for the Palazzo Vecchio, Italy. The classically sculpted Renaissance figures appearing in Michelangelo’s drawings are starkly at odds with the lumpy, corpulent figures preferred by Hodgins throughout his career.

The auction opens with twenty lots of early Georgian jewellery from the Estate Late Vyvyan Myerson. Vyvyan was a well-known collector and valuator in South Africa. His interests and collecting fields were wide and embraced the best of the decorative arts, including English and Continental furniture and silver, together with oriental treasures. The highlight of this session is a tiara/necklace by the well-known Parisian jeweller, Falize (estimate R200 000 – 220 000). This beautiful example set with old-cut and rose-cut diamonds, transforms from a necklace to a tiara and finally to an aigrette. Jewellery from other well-known designers including Nino D’Antonio Germano, Paloma Picasso, Andrew Grima and Salvador Dali will be on offer.
A fine Irish silver tray by Robert Calderwood bearing the arms of O’Neill, Earls O’Neill (estimate R90 000 – 120 000) together with a pair of Victorian silver and glass comports by Thomas Bradbury & Sons (R80 000 – 100 000), represents two of the fine offerings of English silver. A silver covered sugar bowl (estimate R100 000-120 000) is testimony to the workmanship of master Cape silversmith Daniel Heinrich Schmidt. In addition a rare suite of silver furniture fittings by Johannes Casparis Lotter should attract the attention of Cape furniture collectors. The work of the international, highly talented and distinguished Zimbabwean silversmith, Patrick Mavros is represented by two spectacular table settings, the first cast with elephants and the second with a group of camels and palm trees (estimate R550 000 – 700 000 each).
The Oriental section is particularly rich in late 17 century to the 19th century Japanese and Chinese blue and white wares, the star lot being a Japanese Arita VOC dish repatriated from America specifically for this auction (estimate R150 000 – 200 000). Two important Chinese collections highlight this section – these include a group of attractive Chinese jade scholars’ objects from the Estate Late Vyvyan Myerson, and an eclectic range of carved hardstone, amber and crystal snuff bottles from a private collector. The decorative arts section concludes with an important group of iconic mid-century Scandinavian furniture designed by Hans J. Wegner, Grete Jalk and Fausto Boscariol amongst others.

Strauss & Co’s March sale will be held at the Vineyard Hotel, Cape Town, on Monday, 5 March. As is custom, the company will host a preview from 2 to 4 March, from 10am to 5pm, as well as offer an extensive programme of talks and social events.

Press enquiries:
Bina Genovese
bina@straussart.co.za