Superb portraits by Gratrix, Kentridge, Muholi, Pemba and Stern lead Strauss & Co’s November Flagship Sales

28 Oct 2024

JOHANNESBURG – Strauss & Co is pleased to present details of its November Sales, comprising four sales over two days (11-12 November 2024). The programme includes two online-only sales, both concluding on Monday, 11 November 2024, and two live-virtual sales at Strauss & Co’s salesroom in Houghton, commencing at 5pm and 7pm on Tuesday, 12 November 2024. 

The sales will collectively showcase the very best of South African modern and contemporary art, including important portraits by David Goldblatt, Georgina Gratrix, William Kentridge, Zanele Muholi, George Pemba, Alexis Preller, Irma Stern and Anton van Wouw. There are also highly collectable works by Keith Alexander, Walter Battiss, Wolf Kibel, Esther Mahlangu, Nelson Makamo, Walter Meyer, J.H. Pierneef and Athi-Patra Ruga. The November sales include a sale spotlighting the Everard Group, with works by all four generations of women artists.

“Our November sales in Johannesburg will be the crescendo to our busy sales and exhibition activities for 2024,” says Alastair Meredith, Head of Art Department, Strauss & Co. “The diverse consignment underscores Gauteng’s importance in the story of South African art. We have an early bronze from 1902 by Anton van Wouw, The Art Student, which depicts a young Gordon Leith (estimate R700 000 – R1 million / $39 570 – 56 515). The bronze is accompanied by a portfolio of original architectural and figure study drawings by Leith, the architect of Johannesburg Park Station.”

Adds Alastair Meredith: “Our strong modernist consignment includes Irma Stern’s important Congolese portrait, Watussi Chief’s Wife in Yellow, 1946 (estimate R4 – 5 million / $226 050 – 282 570) which was first exhibited in Johannesburg in 1947. A Johannesburg sale would not be complete without William Kentridge’s work. We are offering a self-portrait from 1985 (estimate R650 000 – 850 000 / $36 725 – 48 040), originally gifted by Kentridge to his long-time dealer Linda Givon, founder of the Goodman Gallery. It is complemented by a Kentridge drawing from his 1989 film Stereoscope (estimate R2 – 3 million / $113 010 – 169 510) consigned by the estate of Linda Givon.”

The thematic sale Rough and Smooth: A Focus on Surface and Texture, which launches the live-virtual auctions, gathers an astonishment of riches. Leading this sale is a tapestry by celebrated textile artist Igshaan Adams, Landskap, 2018 (estimate R500 000 – 700 000/ $28 260 – 39 570). Adams currently has a solo exhibition at The Hepworth Wakefield, a museum in West Yorkshire. Rough and Smooth further includes Georgina Gratrix’s important painting 80s Mom, 2013 (estimate R250 000 – 350 000 / $14 125 – 18 780), which prominently featured in the artist’s early-career survey at Norval Foundation in 2021. 

The sculpture consignment in Rough and Smooth includes Alexis Preller’s mosaic mural from a private residence in Pretoria (estimate R6 – 8 million/ $339 110 – 452 150) and Edoardo Villa’s Horizontal Form I, 1957 (estimate R400 000 – 600 000 / $22 605 – 33 910), which graced the artist’s Johannesburg home for many decades. Artist-potter Hylton Nel, whose Dior collaboration in June introduced his whimsical ceramics to a global audience, has five pieces in the sale, including the figural pair Green Dog with Black Spots (estimate R80 000 – 120 000 / $4 520 – 6 780).

Irma Stern’s Watussi Chief’s Wife in Yellow, 1946, which leads the premier Evening Sale (at 7pm), is one of only a dozen oils made during Stern’s second work trip to Belgian Congo. The portrait forms part of a core body of paintings depicting noblewomen from Central Africa. Two contemporaneous portraits by George Pemba, Man Smoking a Pipe and Portrait of a Woman in Traditional Dress, both from 1947, show the artist’s confident uptake of oil paint after working chiefly with watercolours (estimate R350 000 – 450 000 / $18 780 – 25 429).

The photographic consignment in the Evening Sale includes three portraits by Zanele Muholi, who is currently showing at Tate Modern, London. They include two self-portraits from their acclaimed series Somnyama Ngonyama and an important early work from 2007, Kgompi and Charles Januarie (estimate R200 000 – 300 000 / $11 300 – 16 950). David Goldblatt, a mentor to Muholi, is represented by two works, most notably Girl in Her New Tutu on the Stoep, 1980, (estimate R280 000 – 320 000 / $15 825 – 18 085) from his seminal essay In Boksburg.

The 19 lots in The Everard Group sale include works by Edith King, Bertha Everard, Ruth Everard-Haden, Rosamund Everard-Steenkamp, Leonora Everard-Haden and Nichola Leigh. The self-taught painter and air-force pilot Rosamund Everard-Steenkamp’s Rondeval (estimate R180 000 – 240 000 / $10 170 – 13 560) and her equally gifted sister Ruth Everard-Haden’s Riverlands Stoep (estimate R150 000 – 200 000 / $8 475 – 11 300) lead this special presentation. The sale is accompanied by a dedicated e-catalogue with extensive notes about this formidable group of artists first recognised with a museum show at the Pretoria Art Museum in 1967.