Irma Stern heads list in spring bidding
IRMA Stern’s Still Life of Fruit and Lilies in a Jug (R4m-R6m) will be the main attraction at Strauss & Co’s spring auction on Monday at the Vineyard Hotel in Newlands.
On offer too will be rare South African and international art, from JH Pierneef, Pieter Wenning, Jean Welz, Walter Battiss and Erik Laubscher, to Robert Hodgins, William Kentridge and Penny Siopis.
Younger artists include Georgina Gratrix, Athi-Patra Ruga, this year’s winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Performance Art, and Mohau Modisakeng.
An early hand-coloured print by Colin Richards is likely to appeal to discerning collectors.
International works range from 17th-century portrait paintings to works by Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse and Diego Rivera.
Erik Laubscher’s early formalist paintings from his years in Paris, include Women Arranging Flowers (R1.2m–R1.6m), the most significant work by this artist to come to the market in recent years.
Works by Robert Hodgins will be on sale, including Clubmen of America: Academy Cadets (R600,000–R800,000); End Game (R500,000–R700,000), painted in 1994, and The Man in the Fairground Booth (R500,000– R700,000), painted in 2003.
With My Typewriter (R200,000– R300,000) Walter Battiss transformed a functional object into a sculptural piece, creating an iconic object so unique that it has featured in major exhibitions, from Gentle Anarchist at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg in 2005, to the groundbreaking Dada South? at Iziko’s South African National Gallery in Cape Town, held from 2009-10.
According to Stephan Welz, who sold this work at auction in 1990, “it amazed and amused me then, as it still does. Battiss was just so far ahead of his time, so much so that few people in 1990 appreciated it as a work of art.”
The Penny Siopis triptych, Hunting and Nature Scene (R800,000– R1.2m) is expected to attract major attention, considering that her pastel drawing, Imaging, sold at Strauss & Co in 2013 for R668,400. Her other works include paintings from the Shame and Pinky Pink series, and an early large canvas titled Grahamstown (R80,000-R120,000).
William Kentridge’s Telephone Lady (R600,000–R900,000) is a rare example on canvas of this 2m print, part of the Museum of Modern Art Collection, New York.
Pieter Wenning’s Jonkershuis, Groot Constantia (R400,000– R500,000) was painted during a visit to the Cape between March and September 1917, and his Still Life with Pumpkin and Fruit (R400,000–R600,000) was painted in the mid-1950s.
Strauss & Co have been given the mandate to auction property from the Rodwell House Collection.
This renowned period home in St James, which was built for Randlord “Lucky Jim” JB Taylor, was acquired in 2005 by Robin von Holdt and Gavin Watkins.
The collection includes works by 11 of SA’s top artists, with two early paintings by Pierneef: Mission Station, East Africa (R800,000–R1.2m) and Landscape with Two Cottages (R400,000–R600,000).