Year: 2019

JH “Henk” Pierneef demonstrated his enduring appeal at Strauss & Co’s R55-million Spring sale, held in Cape Town on 7 October, achieving a total of R9.65 million from nine lots sold. The top lot, a monumental study of interlaced camelthorn trees in a landscape near Thabazimbi, sold for R2.73 million. The results marked a welcome return to form for Pierneef, whose prices had been diluted by a recent fire sale by a distressed collector.

The history of Harcroft is bound up in an extraordinary love story which began in 1936, when British born Charles Louis Rycroft flouted the conventions of the time to marry a divorcee, Muriel Susan Elizabeth Parsons. Harcroft Estate, situated on the banks of the Ayer Tawar river in Perak, Malaysia, was a rubber plantation comprising the estate and the factory which Charles’s father, George Henry Rycroft, and his business partner, John Hartley, had purchased in 1919. Merging their two surnames, it was registered as Harcroft Rubber Estates Ltd.

An exceptional assembly of bronzes by three trailblazing modernist sculptors – Ezrom Legae, Lucas Sithole and Edoardo Villa – lead Strauss & Co’s robust offering of sculpture at its forthcoming live sale on Monday, 11 November in Johannesburg.

A historically important painting by Penny Siopis forms part of a remarkable consignment of work by former staff and students of the University of the Witwatersrand on offer at Strauss & Co’s upcoming live sale, due to take place on Monday 11 November at 7pm in Johannesburg at their Houghton rooms, 89 Central Street.

Celebrated contemporary artist William Kentridge affirmed his place among auction stalwarts JH Pierneef and Alexis Preller at Strauss & Co’s R37-million summer sale in Johannesburg. The packed evening sale, which started just before the welcome arrival of overdue rain, saw the auction house establish four new world records for artists, notably Ezrom Legae, whose African Goat, cast at the Vignali Foundry in Pretoria in 1990, sold for R1.7 million.

Leading auction house Strauss & Co is privileged to be offering the entire contents of Harcroft House – an imposing 64-roomed Arts and Crafts mansion in the heart of Constantia in Cape Town. The 558-lot auction will take place in situ on Monday 18 November and will be preceded by three days of public viewing, from Friday 15 to Sunday 17 November.

Strauss & Co ended its 2019 programme of live sales on a confident note when the contents of Harcroft House, a distinguished Cape manor home in Constantia, was sold. The highest earner among the 558 lots on offer was a Chinese early Republican period, four-panel scroll painting depicting birds in flowering trees, which sold for R432 440, more than four times the estimate.

Bag Factory Artists’ Studios, in partnership with Strauss Education and Kalashnikovv Gallery is proud to announce Duduzile (DuduBloom) More as the winner of the prestigious Cassirer Welz Award. Now in its ninth year, the award honours two doyens of art auctioneering in South Africa: Reinhold Cassirer and Stephan Welz. We would also once again like to congratulate the other three finalists for this year’s Cassirer Welz Award: Boitumelo Motau, Khotso Motsoeneng and Thebe Phetogo. Duduzile was announced as the winner of the award on 25 November at Strauss & Co in Johannesburg.

Strauss & Co is proud to announce the auction of three notable single-owner collections in its online sale of 19th Century, Modern, Post-War and Contemporary Art, Decorative Arts, Jewellery and Wine, due to be held on Monday, 11 May. The revised virtual format was necessitated by the current Covid-19 outbreak.

Strauss & Co’s forthcoming March sale in Cape Town includes a fine selection of Chinese and Japanese ceramics and works art, English silverware and Cape furniture from two distinguished single-owner collections. The impeccable consignments from the Dr J.R. and Mary Strong Collection and Dr Johan Bolt Collection showcase artisanal traditions from various cultural epochs. Collectively, they evidence the role of passion and connoisseurship in building a collection.