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Strauss & Co to offer the Tasso Foundation Collection of important South African art assembled by the late Giulio Bertrand of Morgenster

8 Oct 2020

Bertrand became involved in this renowned estate in 1992 and went on to reinvigorate its winemaking traditions as well as introduce olive cultivation, a complimentary activity to winemaking in Italy that was unheard of at the time in South Africa. The Italian olive trees and Bordeaux vines he introduced at Morgenster prospered and Bertrand acquired the legend as a champion olive-oil maker and discriminating wine producer.

“Giulio Bertrand was a true Renaissance man: a successful industrialist who in his later years became a pioneering agriculturalist, and whose passion for art was instrumental in assembling the Tasso Foundation Collection,” says Bina Genovese, Strauss & Co’s joint managing director. “His impact on the culture of the Cape winelands is well known. Morgenster’s extra virgin olive oils have received numerous accolades, both local and international, as have its prestigious and multi-award-winning Bordeaux-influenced wines, as evidenced in the estimate-beating prices achieved in our May 2020 fine wine sale. The passion and devotion Giulio Bertrand brought to wine growing and olive cultivation was similarly evident in building this impressive collection.”

The 75-lot sale of paintings, sculpture and works on paper consigned by the Tasso Foundation tells the story of South African art and artists from the period of union to liberation, but is framed by a far older history of exchange between South Africa and Italy.

Established in 1711 from a section of the farm that originally constituted Vergelegen Estate, Morgenster’s first owner, Jacques Malan, was a French Huguenot whose family traced their ancestry back to the north-western Italian valleys of Piedmont. Bertrand was born in Biella, an important Italian wool processing and textile centre in Piedmont. Much of his discernment and knowhow was formed in the Piedmont region.

Bertrand’s introduction to South Africa predated his activities at Morgenster. Born into a respected family-run textile business supplying yarns and fabrics, its operations included two factories located in the Eastern Cape. Starting in 1975, Bertrand visited South Africa four-times annually from Italy to oversee production at these factories. It started his longstanding love affair with South Africa.

Morgenster was ostensibly a retirement project for Bertrand, but given his unique flair and passion, the last three decades of his life were anything but sedate. Bertrand embarked on the ambitious transformation of Morgenster’s agricultural production as well as the restoration of its historic buildings.

Built-in 1786, the original manor house at Morgenster is famous for its six gables, in particular the front gable, which is widely considered the finest example of Cape baroque style. Bertrand oversaw the renovation of the house with the guidance of architect Revel Fox and designer Graham Viney.

The collaboration was central to Bertrand’s ethos. He established productive partnerships with the Olive Oil Research Institute of Italy and Pierre Lurton of Chateau Cheval Blanc and Chateau d’Yquem in Bordeaux, as well as with auctioneer and tastemaker Stephan Welz.

Building an art collection is about enthusiasm and long-term commitment,” says Bina Genovese, who, along with other colleagues, knew Bertrand personally. “From the time he started acquiring works for the collection, in the late 1990s, Giulio Bertrand was a regular attendee of art auctions. He not only partook in the bonhomie but also sought the counsel of others with insight to guide his acquisitions. Over time he built up a remarkable collection of historical works, which he later – without hesitation – complemented with works by leading contemporary artists.”

The collection includes various artists whose works reiterate the strong historical links between Italy and South Africa. Irma Stern’s marine landscape of the Grand Canal in Venice (estimate R5–7 million), the highest valued lot on offer, is the most explicit. A noted traveller, Stern frequently visited Venice, most consistently throughout the 1950s when she represented South Africa at four editions of the Venice Biennale.

Grand Canal in Venice dates from Stern’s 1948 visit to the Most Serene Republic of Venice (La Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia) as the city is nicknamed. She set up a studio overlooking St Mark’s Square, met art patron Peggy Guggenheim and painted the Grand Canal from a yacht with two assistants at hand. “Venetian artists say that she is a Rubens-Veronese type and is herself eminently paintable,” reported the Cape Times in 1948 of her visit.

Bertrand was strongly attracted to Stern’s output, acquiring works from various periods in several genres. The Tasso Foundation Collection includes two flower studies from the 1940s, the decade in which Stern painted her most important still lifes. A Cape Times critic in 1948 described Stern’s flower studies as “bold in composition” and “superbly sumptuous in colour”. Both works on offer – Still Life of Dahlias in a Vase with a Basket of Apples (estimate R3.5–5 million) from 1945 and Still Life of Hydrangeas in a Jar with Mangoes (estimate R3.5–5 million) from 1949 – embody these characteristics.

Painted in 1962, when she spent much of her time touring around the Mediterranean, Olive Pickers (estimate R2.5–3.5 million) describes a favourite Stern motif: women at work. The subject of this late-period painting neatly dovetails with Bertrand’s own mature interests in olive cultivation. Morgenster released its first oil in 1998 and has gone on to win numerous international accolades. Many of South Africa’s olive groves are directly related to the 2000 trees Bertrand initially imported from Italy in the early 1990s.

Stern is one among many pioneering moderns in the Tasso Foundation Collection. Other notable artists include Gwelo Goodman, J.H. Pierneef, Maud Sumner and Pieter Wenning. An influential post-impressionist, Wenning’s An Eating House (estimate R500 000 – 700 000) was exhibited at the South African National Gallery in 1931, shortly after the museum opened at its permanent address. The historical selection also includes three paintings depicting Morgenster’s illustrious manor house, two by Edward Roworth and a further work by Frank Spears.

lmportant post-war artists represented in the Tasso Foundation Collection include Walter Battiss, François Krige, Stanley Pinker, Fred Page, Alexis Preller, Gerard Sekoto and Cecil Skotnes. Highlights include Pinker’s The Bathers (estimate R800 000 – 1.2 million), a sensuous figure painting typical of his earlier French-influenced period, and Preller’s The Red Pineapples (estimate R700 000 – 1 million), a still life made during or shortly after his 1948–49 trip to the Seychelles.

Although immersed in classical traditions and culture at Morgenster, Bertrand was unafraid of new challenges and aesthetic pursuits. He effortlessly pivoted to acquiring contemporary art for the Tasso Foundation. Its holdings include works by leading South African artists Norman Catherine, Robert Hodgins, William Kentridge, Penny Siopis, Simon Stone, Andrew Verster, Diane Victor and Harold Voigt. It also includes a work by renowned Zimbabwean sculptor Tapfuma Gutsa who represented his country at the 2011 Venice Biennale. Siopis and Kentridge have also exhibited at the Venice Biennale.

Kentridge, whose work Tree (estimate R600 000 – 800 000) features an arboreal design in Indian ink on book pages, is a well-known artist in Italy. In 2016 he created Triumphs & Laments: a Project for Rome, a monumental frieze along the banks of the Tiber River. The artist’s connection with Italy is longstanding and was inspired by stories told to him as a child by his father, lawyer and judge Sir Sydney Kentridge.

“He was in the South African Air Force as an intelligence officer, and was with the Allied Forces as they came up from Sicily during the second part of World War Two,” said Kentridge in 2016 of his father. “I think that from that moment he had a love for Italy, so of all the places in Europe, Italy is the most infectious for me.”

Another contemporary artist in the Tasso Foundation Collection with direct links to Italy is Diane Victor. Through one of her Italian relatives, a Papal Swiss Guard in the Vatican City in Rome, she once secured an audience with the Pope in his private chambers.

Victor’s three-part etching Trinity Fetish (estimate R150 000 – 200 000) is typical of the artist’s ambitious methods, which challenge the traditional limits of printmaking. The art historian Elizabeth Rankin has likened Victor’s habit of presenting images that spill out of the boundaries of their format, as evidenced in Trinity Fetish, to the eighteenth-century Italian printmaker Giovanni Piranesi.

The Tasso Foundation Collection of important South African art meticulously assembled by the late Giulio Bertrand will be auctioned on Monday, 9 November. This dedicated sale session forms part of North/South, an exciting weeklong virtual sale of art, fine wine and decorative arts due to be held over five consecutive days from 8–11 November 2020. This new, multi-day virtual sale replaces Strauss & Co’s remaining two marquee live sales – scheduled for October (Cape Town) and November (Johannesburg) – with a single, consolidated live virtual online sale supported by a series of catalogues.