Rare works by SA artists to go under the hammer in Kirstenbosch

● Works featuring major departures from the styles and methods of some of SA’s bestknown artists go on auction by Stephan Welz & Co in Cape Town on February 4-5.

They include a painting with an estimated price of R800,000 to R1.2m by Alexis Preller, painted as he began revelling in abstract expressionism, and a rare seascape by Jacob Hendrik Pierneef, who focused almost exclusively on landscapes.

Also on auction is a work by nonconformist Walter Whall Battiss in which he used a palette knife to apply paint in a technique he developed in rebellion after overhearing Wits fine art department lecturers discouraging students from doing this.

The auction takes place in the Old Mutual Conference Centre at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.

Preller (1911–1975) painted his work on auction, Constellation, in the 1960s. He became fascinated with abstract expressionism, the American art movement that emerged in New York in the 1940s led by such artists as Jackson Pollock, who became renowned for his style of drip painting.

One of SA’s most noted landscape artists, Pierneef (1886-1957), is represented at the auction by an unusual seascape, Vasco da Gama Seil Om Kaap Punt. The work commemorates the Portuguese explorer’s first expedition to the East as it passed the Cape of Good Hope in November 1497.

With an estimated price of R250,000 to R350,000, the signed and dated work, completed in 1949, shows three billowing caravels, emblazoned with the sovereign insignia of Portugal, sailing on the choppy sea against a palette of blue water, sky and land.

The colourful, often irreverent Battiss (1906-1982) painted his East African Scene, which is in the auction, during the 1960s, when he undertook trips to the region and the Middle East.

With an estimated price of R280,000 to R380,000, the painting shows a solitary woman wearing a headscarf against the background of a shack settlement. Battiss used a palette knife and brush to apply paint, as well as the back end of his paintbrush or another sharp instrument to mimic the corrugated iron used to build the shacks.

Auction goers will have an opportunity to support Wildline, a privately run, self-funded wildlife rescue and rehabilitation centre, by bidding for a striking painting, Black Rhino Charge and Aloe, by artist Mike Holmes.

For more information: ct@stephanwelzandco.co.za or www.stephanwelzandco.co.za.

Telephone: 021-794-6461.