Mineworkers’ totemic bronze under the hammer at Strauss on Monday
• Works by Ezrom Legae, Lucas Sithole and Edoardo Villa are the main sculptural attractions
Bronzes by three modernist sculptors — Ezrom Legae, Lucas Sithole and Edoardo Villa — lead Strauss & Co’s offering of sculpture at its sale on Monday November 11 in Johannesburg.
Collectors can bid on Sithole’s monumental bronze,
Wounded Buffalo (estimate R1.5m-R2m), a storied piece of SA sculpture.
More than 1.3m high, it was commissioned by mining house Union Corporation in Johannesburg at a price of R10,000. Modelled after a small work that Sithole included in his exhibition at Gallery 101 in 1970, Wounded
Buffalo was installed outside the workers’ recreation hall at Bracken Mines, Evander, in 1971.
When Bracken Mines closed in 1993, Wounded Buffalo was sold to a private collector. Its appearance on the art market is an opportunity for collectors to secure a museum-quality piece.
Legae’s African Goat (estimate R1m–R1.5m) is a fine example of the sculptural style that emerged in Johannesburg in the 1950s. In a synthesis of African and European stylistic influences, Legae and his mentor, Sydney Kumalo, frequently portrayed animal subjects.
African Goat was cast at the Vignali Foundry in Pretoria, the oldest bronze foundry in SA, in 1990. It was limited to an edition of seven, one of which is in the collection of Iziko SA National Gallery, Cape Town. This lot is the artist’s proof.
Six previously unseen works by Edoardo Villa from the estate of Aldo Carrara, an Italian who lived in SA from 1949-1960, are also on offer.
“Sithole and Villa represented SA at the Venice Biennale, in the 1950s and ’60s. Legae’s career blossomed later and he appeared on artist Rickey Burnett’s exhibition Tributaries [1985],” says Susie Goodman, executive director at Strauss.
Other sculptural highlights from the forthcoming sale include editions of:
● Anton van Wouw’s The Bushman Hunter (estimate R1.2mR1.5m), a benchmark example of early SA sculpture conceived in 1902 and cast at the Nisini foundry in Rome;
● William Kentridge’s Horse (estimate R1m–R1.2m), a schematic portrayal of a mount produced by Bronze Age in Cape Town; and
● Peter Haden’s Batman (estimate R40,000–R60,000), a diminutive study of an attenuated human figure with saillike wings. Produced in 1970 by this second-generation Amadlozi Group artist, the work was first exhibited locally in a 2019 exhibition organised by collector Gavin Watkins at Strauss & Co’s gallery in Houghton and at Welgemeend, a manor house in Cape Town.
The sale, will include two important works by painter
Penny Siopis, as well as feature a segment devoted to SA artists linked to Paris.
Strauss & Co will host a programme of public talks and social events in the lead-up to the sale, which starts at 7pm.