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Strauss & Co selling three artist-designed bicycles to benefit education outcomes

21 Oct 2021

The auction is composed of eight sessions, one of which comprises works by sculptors Stephané Conradie, Collen Maswanganyi and Stanislaw Trzebinski in support of philanthropic initiatives organised by banking group Absa in cooperation with global charity Qhubeka.

The Qhubeka/Absa art auction forms part of these organisations on-going efforts to support communities and improve education outcomes. The 24-lot session includes lots by Wayne Barker, Liberty Battson, Roberto Vaccaro and Izanne Wiid, among others. Proceeds from the auction will go toward supporting Qhubeka, which distributes bicycles to improve access to schools, clinics and jobs in Africa.

 The timing of the auction coincides with this year’s Absa Cape Epic, one of the toughest mountain bike stage races in the world. Sculptor Angus Taylor, whose Buffalo Bicycle (estimate R20 000 – 30 000) is one of three artist-designed bicycles in the charity auction, has been a regular participant in the Absa Cape Epic.

Other notable sculpture lots in this online-only auction include George Ramagaga’s Embracing Couple (estimate R5 000 – 7 000), Mashego Johannes Segogela’s Couple III: Man in Black Suit and Pregnant Woman in Purple Spotted Dress (estimate R3 500 – 4 500) and Julius Mfethe Man with Walking Stick and Pipe (estimate R12 000 – 16 000). Strauss & Co established a benchmark price for Mfethe’s lovingly rendered sculptural study of an isiXhosa homestead and family sold for R108 110 at its recent virtual live auction in Cape Town. 

Strauss & Co’s October online-only auction includes a standalone session organised by its decorative arts department. Highlights include a selection of architect-designed furniture, notably two Willow chairs after a design by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (estimate R18 000 – 24 000), an LC3 two-seater settee and an armchair en-suite designed by Le Corbusier (estimate R25 000 – 35 000) and three pairs of black lacquered and glass E1027 tables after a design by Eileen Gray (estimate R10 000 – 14 000 each). Other illustrious makers in this session include Gae Aulenti, Joe Colombo, Rodney Kinsman, Rene Lalique and Aldo Rossi.

The 54 lots in the wine session include wines from top local producers Boekenhoutskloof, Cape Point Vineyards, Chamonix, Cordoba, De Toren, Keet, Meerlust, Mvemve Raats, Raats, Steenberg, Thelema, Vergelegen and Vilafonté. The pick of the crop is the 12-bottle lot of Meerlust’s Merlot 1998 (estimate R10 000 – 12 000) and a half-dozen bottles of Vilafonté’s Series M 2005 (estimate R12 000 – 15 000), a Malbec and Merlot dominant blend.

Strauss & Co is delighted to be offering two single-bottle lots of the coveted Pétrus Pomerol, one of the world’s rarest and most expensive wines. Both the 1994 vintage (estimate R45 000 – 60 000) and 2004 vintage (estimate R50 000 – 70 000) are from a private collection. The bottles have been stored in perfect conditions since release from the producer and are in pristine condition.

Wilhelm van Rensburg, Strauss & Co’s head curator and a senior art specialist points to a number of art pieces in the sale that may be of interest to collectors. “The genre of the South African landscape is certainly still one of the most popular subject matter for art collectors and the majority of lots on the October sale provides excellent choices,” says Van Rensburg.

The online-only sale includes impressionistic landscapes by Tinus de Jong, Erich Mayer, Hugo Naudé and Jan Volschenk, as well as works by neo-impressionist painters such as Stefan Ampenberger, Gregoire Boonzaier, Errol Boyley, Robert Broadley, Sydney Carter, WH Coetzer, Gabriel de Jong, Enslin du Plessis, Otto Klar, Christiaan Nice and Chris Tugwell. Boonzaier, an auction regular, has three landscapes in the sale, including the late watercolour Bare Oaks and Cottages (estimate R20 000 – 30 000).

Van Rensburg also singles out to two excellent works in the photographic medium by Jo Ractliffe and Leon Krige, both dealing with the urban landscape. Ractliffe was recently the subject of a comprehensive survey exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently showing a new body of work at Stevenson in Cape Town. Her exhibition Being There includes a collaborative film titled Something this way, which features stills from the same period as her panoramic C-print on sale, Johannesburg (Yizo Yizo) (estimate R 25 000 – 50 000). There is a lot by Guy Tillim.

Quirky graphics recur in the consignment on offer. They include works on paper by a trio of mavericks: Walter Battiss, Norman Catherine and Robert Hodgins. Hodgins’s two colour lithographs Sergeant Major and Miss Priss (estimate R18 000 – 24 000 each) depict social types seen in profile. Battiss’ colour screenprint Banana Boy (estimate R25 000 – 35 000) is one of eight works on paper and certainly the most Fooky. Catherine’s lithograph The Grass (estimate R18 000 – 24 000) depicts a barbed wire fence in vivid pop colours.

Works by Willie Bester, Claudette Schreuders, Ed Young and Asha Zero carry this graphic tradition into the present. Schreuders, who is represented by the 2002 lithograph Third Person (estimate R8 000 – 12 000), is featured in African Artists: From 1882 to Now, a new survey book from international art publisher Phaidon.

For collectors interested in outliers, Van Rensburg recommends considering the four small bronzes by Kevin Brand, a rare bird at auction. The undervalued 91-year-old painter Berenice Michelow, whose life and work is recorded in a 1983 book by Robert Rademeyer, is represented in the auction by a large 1983 painting called The Competitors (estimate R8 000 – 12 000). Also of note is Nel Erasmus’s oil on board composition Iris (estimate R4 000 – 6 000).

This timed online-only auction concludes at 8pm on Monday, 25 October 2021.