Historic SA art on offer at spring sale
● 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, which is valued at between R9m and R12m, will go on sale at the Vineyard Hotel, Newlands, tomorrow along 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.
Says Bina Genovese, Strauss & Co’s joint managing director: “Irma Stern and JH Pierneef are bellwethers of the South
African auction market. Since 2009, when we began trading, Strauss & Co has achieved R630m in sales from just these two artists.”
Stern’s vibrant portrait was exhibited twice in Europe.
The Pierneef offering 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 (estimated at between R500,000 and R 700,000).
Other notable Pierneef lots include the majestic 1943 work Near Thabazimbi, Tvl (estimate R2m-R3m. The work is an expression of Pierneef at his most iconic.
A contemporary of Stern and Pierneef, Maggie Laubser is represented by two early portraits of female sitters. Painted in 1922, Portrait of a Young Girl (estimate R500,000R700,000) reveals Laubser’s technical prowess working in a more academic style, while Weemoed (Melancholy), (estimate R800,000 - R1.2m) exhibits a more expressionist approach, notably in her use of colour work. The latter work was acquired in 1931 and has remained in the same private collection ever since.
Laubser ranks with Stern, Pierneef, Alexis Preller and William Kentridge among the top five artists sold by Strauss & Co. All five are represented in tomorrow’s sale.
The top Preller lot is Two Urn Heads (estimate R400,000 - R600,000), 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 William Kentridge piece on offer is The Artist’s Garden (estimate R700,000 R900,000), an unexpectedly intimate charcoal drawing by this contemporary master.
Other contemporary artists featured in the sale include Wim Botha, Georgina Gratrix, Esther Mahlangu, Walter Meyer, Sam Nhlengethwa and Lionel Smit.
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.
The timetable for tomorrow is:
9.30am: Session One
1.30pm: Session Two
4.30pm: Session Three
5.30pm: Session Four
8.00pm: Session Five
Venue: The Vineyard Hotel, Colinton Road (just off Protea Road), Newlands, Cape
Town.