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
Notes
In July 1961, Walter Battiss voyaged via Zanzibar to the Middle East, Bagdad, and Arabia. With loosely applied brush strokes, Battiss’ Zanzibar
gives us a visceral sense of the tropical island with its singular convergence of Islamic and Swahili influences that shaped the lives of its people, architecture, and cultural practices. The artist compellingly captures the atmosphere of the scene: the evening breeze of the palm trees cooling the air, the whitewashed and bleached facades of buildings and structures, and the calm of the figures conversing or wending their way along a narrow lane as the darkened sky infers the setting in of dusk.
Many South African artists were unable to resist the lure of Zanzibar, the historic 19th century trade centre off the east coast of Africa. Artists such as Jan Hendrik Pierneef, Irma Stern, and Alexis Preller, to name a few, were all inspired there to produce some of the most memorable paintings of the previous century.