Artists

From Albert Adams to Portia Zvavahera, Strauss & Co maintains a detailed database of every artist sold at auction since 2009. Whether it is painting, sculpture, works on paper, photography, ceramics or new media, this searchable database lists by artist every lot offered and provides aggregated data useful to collectors. Famous South African artists like William Kentridge, JH Pierneef, Alexis Preller and Irma Stern are introduced with helpful biographies along with the best contemporary artists.



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Robert Gwelo Goodman

South African 1871-1939 


Robert Goodman was born in Taplow in Buckinghamshire in 1871. He moved with his family to the Cape in 1886 where he attended lessons with JS Morland, the first president of the South African Society of Artists. With Morland’s financial help, the young Goodman continued his training at the Académie Julian in Paris from 1895, before basing himself in London in 1897. He travelled frequently during this period, mainly to the Continent, but also to India and back to South Africa occasionally, where he recorded scenes from the Anglo-Boer War front. He chose to adopt the name Gwelo in the hope of standing out in the London art scene and subsequently signed his work with his now famous ‘RGG’ monogram.

Goodman returned to Cape Town permanently in 1915 and produced a series of works focused on Cape Homesteads, of which the illustrations for Dorothea Fairbridge’s Historic Houses of South Africa, published in 1922, were only a small part. Although he never received formal training in architecture, Goodman’s interest in Cape vernacular architecture and his work alongside Ivan Mitford-Barberton enabled him to play a major role in the so-called Cape Dutch Revival in South Africa, and many of his renovations, adaptations and designs had a lasting impact.

Goodman is undoubtedly one of the country’s most accomplished painters, and a stand-out pastelist. Immersive and memorable paintings of Cape Dutch façades in dappled light, Drakensberg streams, quiet interiors and still lifes, all typically animated with short, flickering strokes of pure colour, mark out a prolific and impressive career. Major private collections inevitably have choice examples, and few local state institutions are without noteworthy ‘Gwelos’ in their survey holdings.


130 lots offered      78.46% sold      ZAR 12 434 961
 

  Including Premium and VAT Results include Buyer's Premium and VAT
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Coastal Scene
23 Apr 2014
ZAR 8 000 - 12 000
 
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Constantia
17 Mar 2014
Sold for ZAR 28 420
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Helderberg
17 Mar 2014
Sold for ZAR 522 928
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Landscape with a Mine
17 Mar 2014
Sold for ZAR 7 026
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Cape Town Docks and Table Bay
17 Mar 2014
Sold for ZAR 409 248
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Hout Bay
17 Mar 2014
Sold for ZAR 181 888
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Jonkershoek, Cape
17 Mar 2014
Sold for ZAR 62 524
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Tall Pines, Table Mountain Beyond
11 Nov 2013
Sold for ZAR 102 312
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Palace in India
11 Nov 2013
Sold for ZAR 215 992
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Himalayas, India
21 Oct 2013
Sold for ZAR 68 208
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Hermanus
21 Oct 2013
Sold for ZAR 22 736
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Distant Mountains, Wemmershoek
21 Oct 2013
Sold for ZAR 43 199
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT