Originally trained as a teacher, Gerard Sekoto soon left that profession to pursue a career in art. He received encouragement and support from Reverend Roger Castle who also provided part-time art classes which Sekoto attended for a while.

My belief is that you enter into a spiritual state through sex……. Don’t you feel that when you are making love you are moving into a situation of cosmic consciousness? Youre not human anymore. That is Satori [enlightenment]. And that is why I draw erotic pictures. I liberate many people this way. I could still be put in jail for it. Walter Battiss. (1)

His love of the arts and his knowledge of diverse cultural forms enabled Robert Hodgins to draw on a range of characters and plots to delight both his viewers intellect and senses.

In October 1948, shortly after giving up his studio at Ygdrasil, Alexis Preller sailed up the East coast of Africa to the Seychelles. He wrote to his sister Minnie about his experience and production in the Seychelles: I cant tell you how happy I am in my work and in the way I am fitting in with the people around me. It’s almost as if there was a place prepared for me and I was meant to come here if all goes well, at the present rate I will have a complete show with me by the time I land at least 30 things…(1)

At a time when the strictures of form often overwhelmed an artist, this example of a Frans Oerder still life is remarkable for its looseness of style.

Penny Siopis emerged onto the South African art scene with her now highly sought-after cake paintings.

277 lots of Important South African and International art are set to go under the hammer at Strauss & Co’s Johannesburg auction on 30 June 2014.

A plethora of no less than ten works by internationally acclaimed artist, Alexis Preller, steal the show at Strauss & Co’s major art auction in Johannesburg on Monday 30 June.

At Strauss & Co’s major auction of Important South African & International Art which took place yesterday evening in Johannesburg, over 200 artworks went under the hammer, achieving a total of R36 million.

An extraordinary discovery was made when the owners of a beautiful Maggie Laubser painting decided to reframe it. To their surprise, they found an equally good painting on the back. According to Stephan Welz, South Africa’s top modern art expert and auctioneer, this remarkable double-sided painting, which is to be offered at Strauss & Co’s 21 October auction at the Vineyard Hotel in Newlands, also has an impeccable provenance and interesting history.