Perspectives on Africa
Live Virtual Auction, 17 February 2025
Perspectives on Africa
About the SessionStrauss & Co is pleased to present Perspectives on Africa, a sale that explores the complexity, beauty, and fluidity of perspectives through African art and works by artists with strong ties to the continent. The sale coalesces the rich and varied connections between Africa and its artistic expressions, presenting works that span figuration, landscape, and abstraction, inviting collectors to engage with powerful narratives emerging from Africa's evolving perspectives. The works reflect layered meanings, both as a method of representing depth and dimension as a way of framing our understanding of the world. Work by Contemporary artists reflects on the historical foundations of Modernist artists, exploring themes such as identity, belonging, urbanisation, and re-encounters with tradition, while the sale transitions to Modernist interpretations of Africa, exploring the complexity of colonial encounters, post-independence aspirations, and indigenous practices. Building on Strauss & Co’s commitment to developing a strong local photography market, the sale includes an artist focus on the work of social documentarian Paul Alberts, whose images captured poignant narratives of everyday life, particularly in Cape Town. These works sit alongside David Goldblatt and Zanele Muholi, whose visceral images explore themes of identity, social justice and the multifaceted realities of African life.
About this Item
signed and dated 61; inscribed with the title on the reverse
Notes
George Pemba met fellow artist Gerard Sekoto, circa 1942, who encouraged him to abandon his watercolour medium for oil and turn his attention to drawing on life in the ‘locations’ as inspiration.1 The present lot is an example of this uniquely South African genre.
Throughout his illustrious career, Pemba created numerous compositional variations of dice players. This early and intimate example, painted a year after Clean Up (lot 125) in 1961, features three young men engrossed in intense concentration. The subject clearly resonated with the artist; as a game of chance, dice serve as a poignant allegory for the unpredictable nature of fortune and life, highlighting how luck only favours some.
The gesture of the young man in the striking turquoise shirt, with active arm and hand, poised to release the die, propels this narrative and draws us into the game’s atmosphere.
Working in a style of Social Realism, Pemba tenderly captured the everyday moments within his community of New Brighton, infusing them with dignity and depth.
1. Jacqueline Nolte (1996) ‘Sources and Style in the Oil Paintings of George Milwa Mnyaluza Pemba’ in Hayden Proud and Barry Feinberg (eds), George Milwa Mnyaluza Pemba: Exhibition, Cape Town, South African National Gallery, 27.4.-28.7.1996, Cape Town: South African National Gallery, exhibition catalogue, page 35.
View all George Milwa Mnyaluza Pemba lots for sale in this auction