Preller, Kentridge a boon

SURREALISM SALE: TOP LOTS BY THESE TWO INTERNATIONAL SA ARTISTS

Leading auctioneer offers seminal art pieces by these two masters.

Strauss & Co’s forthcoming live virtual auction, due to be held in Johannesburg on Monday and Tuesday, features an impressive consignment of artworks by two distinguished South African artists, Alexis Preller and William Kentridge.

The range and quality of the eights lots by Preller and thirteen lots by Kentridge present a boon to collectors of important works by these artists.

Kentridge’s The Highveld Style Masked Ball, a 1988 drawing of a dancing couple, commissioned for a charity event (es timate R2.8 million to 3.4 million), and Preller’s The Great King, a 1963 oil from his seminal series of god-kings (estimate R5 million to 7 million), call attention to their artistic virtuosity in their respective media: charcoal and oil.

These lots by Kentridge and Preller will respectively headline Strauss & Co’s two evening sessions during Johannesburg Auction Week.

Strauss & Co is delighted to be offering a number of important works by Kentridge in advance of the opening of his forthcoming survey exhibition at London’s Royal Academy in September.

Kentridge held his debut international solo in London in 1987.

Kentridge’s takeover of the Main Galleries at the Royal Academy in September will follow similar large-scale exhibitions by artists such as Ai Weiwei, Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley.

Strauss & Co’s consignment of works by Kentridge presents collectors with a valuable opportunity to acquire important works, notably early drawings first exhibited in Johannesburg, including The Highveld Style Masked Ball.

The work will be offered for sale on Monday, in a thematic session focussing on surrealism. It includes his surrealistic 2000 linocut Telephone Lady (estimate R300 000 – R500 000).

Preller’s Birth of Venus (estimate R1.5 – R2 million) re-imagines Sandro Botticelli’s masterpiece. O Poliziano (Florentine Head) is a stylised portrait of Florentine scholar and poet Agnolo Ambrogini that features surrealist flourishes such as a butterfly for an ear (estimate R800 000 – R1.2 million).

The exhibition is open to the public until Tuesday at 89 Central Street, Houghton Estate, Johannesburg.