Pierneef and Stern dominate art sales with R630m at Strauss & Co
Widely exhibited Stern painting goes under hammer with three portraits by Maggie Laubser and a selection of works by Pierneef
A stirring Irma Stern portrait of a Watusi woman, painted on Stern’s second trip to the Belgian Congo in 1946, leads Strauss & Co’s impressive offering of historical paintings at its forthcoming spring sale in Cape Town.
The widely exhibited painting, valued at R9m-R12m, will go on sale at the Vineyard Hotel, Newlands, on October 7, with three portraits by Maggie Laubser and a diverse selection of works by JH Pierneef, among them five joyous paintings from a single-owner collection.
“Irma Stern and JH Pierneef are bellwethers of the SA auction market,” says Bina Genovese, Strauss & Co’s joint MD.
“Since 2009, when we began trading, Strauss & Co has achieved R630m in sales from just these two artists. This astonishing figure bears testimony to the broad base of collectors who have found deep pleasure in owning works by these important SA moderns.
“We are especially honoured to be offering the historically important Stern portrait, which was exhibited in London and Paris shortly after it was made,” Genovese said.
Stern’s vibrant portrait was exhibited twice in Europe. The first occasion was in Paris on her solo show Irma Stern: Peintures D’Afrique at the Galerie des Beaux-Arts. Located on the fashionable rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, three blocks from the Champs-Élysées, the gallery was run by Georges Wildenstein, the second in a long line of prominent Jewish art dealers.
According to the art historian Marion Arnold, Stern’s Paris exhibition was a roaring success, bringing her “widespread interest and eulogistic comment in French art publications”.
Art specialist Matthew Partridge says the “impeccable provenance of Watussi [sic]
Woman with Mountains, which includes notable British scientist and philosopher Dr RL Worrall and Count Natale Labia, among others, attests to Stern’s universal desirability, and provides biographical dimension to the painting.
The Pierneef offering on Strauss’s October sale also attests to the power of travel in energising artistic practice. In 1926, Pierneef returned to Pretoria from an extensive European tour with plans to “shock” art connoisseurs with a new style.
Part of a consignment of five paintings from the Collection of a Lady, Gold & Green, Rooiplaat, NT (estimate R500,000R700,000) is a neoimpressionist wonder that depicts the artist’s beloved Rooiplaat with short, wriggling strokes of pure colour, notably mauve, teal, pink and yellow.
This particular consignment
includes two early oils of willow trees, the dominant motif of Pierneef’s early career, as well as the dazzling and self-assured Tall Trees in a Mountain Landscape (R500,000-R700,000). Painted in 1925, the latter work dates from Pierneef’s marriage to May Schoep after an unhappy earlier marriage and is a remarkable example of work from this energised period of renewal.
The top Preller lot is Two Urn
Heads (estimate R400,000R600,000), an undated work that corresponds with works he produced after his return to SA in 1943 from Italy where he had been a prisoner of war.
The premier evening session will start with the sale of five works from the estate of Namibian art collectors Peter and Regina Strack. The consignment includes two oils from 1944 by celebrated landscape painter Adolph Jentsch, Sunset Landscape with Trees and Namibian Landscape (each valued at R500,000-R700,000), as well as works by the equally revered Fritz Krampe.
Other prominent historical artists who will go under the hammer include Walter Battiss, Peter Clarke, Robert Hodgins, Wolf Kibel, Sydney Kumalo, Judith Mason, Gerard Sekoto and Maurice van Essche. Kumalo’s bronze figure,
Matriarch, (estimate R500,000R700,000) was cast at the Vignali Foundry in Pretoria in 1984 and is part of an edition of five works. Mason’s arresting oil
Roar (R200,000-R300,000), depicts a lion’s rearing head, multiplied in an arched motion.
THIS ASTONISHING FIGURE BEARS TESTIMONY TO THE BROAD BASE OF COLLECTORS WHO HAVE FOUND DEEP PLEASURE IN THEM
STERN’S PARIS EXHIBITION WAS A ROARING SUCCESS, BRINGING HER EULOGISTIC COMMENT IN FRENCH ART PUBLICATIONS