Strauss & Co will host a two-person exhibition featuring Gerard Sekoto and Lena Hugo in Johannesburg. Curated by Wilhelm van Rensburg, Senior Art Specialist and Head Curator at Strauss & Co, Working Life in South Africa: Gerard Sekoto & Lena Hugo (1 April – 30 May 2025) will explore Sekoto’s depictions of labourers—nannies, washerwomen, brick-makers, coal merchants, miners, barbers, shopkeepers, street photographers, and water drawers—alongside Hugo’s pastel drawings of heavy-machinery operators.

The exhibition will include Sekoto’s pre-exile oil painting, The Mother on the Road (c. 1945–47), an important work featured in Gerard Sekoto: Unsevered Ties, a retrospective exhibition held at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 1989. The Mother on the Road will be offered for sale in Strauss & Co’s flagship live sale in May 2025.