Monochrome: Modern and Contemporary Art

Timed Online Auction, 7 - 27 March 2023

Monochrome
About the Session

The monochrome session features artworks from big hitters such as William Kentridge, Robert Hodgins, Joni Brenner, Deborah Bell, and Irma Stern. Each work explores form through the manipulation of a material rather than through the addition of colour. 

Artworks from the sale will be displayed in a dedicated space at Strauss & Co’s new offices in Brickfield Canvas, 35 Brickfield Road, Woodstock. 

The monochrome session is an extended session that opens on Tuesday 7 March at 8 am and concludes at 2 pm on the 27th of March, closing in 1-minute intervals.


  • Deborah Bell; Ma Ubu I
  • Deborah Bell; Ma Ubu I
  • Deborah Bell; Ma Ubu I
  • Deborah Bell; Ma Ubu I
  • Deborah Bell; Ma Ubu I
  • Deborah Bell; Ma Ubu I
  • Deborah Bell; Ma Ubu I
  • Deborah Bell; Ma Ubu I


Lot Estimate
ZAR 10 000 - 15 000

About this Item

South African 1957-
Ma Ubu I

signed, dated 1997-2011, numbered 32/45 in pencil and embossed with the Caversham Press chopmark in the margin; inscribed with the artist’s name, the title and the medium on an Everard Read label adhered to the reverse

etching
plate size: 25 by 29cm; 50 by 64 by 3cm including frame

Notes

The proceeds from the sale of this lot will benefit three young South African classical musicians awarded scholarships by UK music schools, and supported by the Quartet of Peace Trust and the ARCO Project at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

The Quartet of Peace Trust was founded to support musically talented young people from South Africa, promoting reconciliation, mutual respect and tolerance through music. The Trust has partnered with the ARCO Project to extend musical access and development in South Africa.

Three South African teenagers have won scholarships to prestigious musical institutions in the UK: long-standing ARCO students Sifiso Mbatha, 17, from Dobsonville, Soweto, who will study cello at the Purcell School in Hertfordshire, and Kamogelo Maraba, 18, from Diepkloof, Soweto, who will study cello at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Jordan Brooks, 17, from Cape Town, will study violin at Chetham’s School of Music, Manchester.

However, these awards do not cover travel and living costs. The proceeds from the sale of this lot will help these musicians to take up the opportunity that they have worked so hard to create.

“We were made to enjoy music .... Human beings are actually created for the transcendent, for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful ... and all of us are given the task of trying to make this world a little more hospitable to these beautiful things.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Patron, Quartet of Peace

View all Deborah Bell lots for sale in this auction