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Welgemeend Art Month 2021

1 Aug 2021

The annual celebration of arts and culture held every August in the historic Cape Town manor home of Welgemeend, returns in 2021 with a diverse programme of events coordinated around a special theme. This year’s Art Month at Welgemeend celebrates a special milestone: collector Frank Kilbourn, who with his wife, Lizelle, initiated this month-long art event in 2014, turns 60.

“We have tied my coming of age into an exciting programme coordinated around the theme 60/360,” explains Frank Kilbourn, a businessman and executive chairperson of Strauss & Co. “Art Month at Welgemeend 2021 will showcase works from the Kilbourn Collection, including some early pieces acquired with the assistance of art dealer Leon Strydom, who sadly passed away from COVID. Leon established the Strydom Gallery in George in 1968 and played an important role in our journey as young collectors. This is an opportunity to pay homage to Leon as well as to affirm the role of art in maintaining a 360-degree view of life.”

A joint initiative between the Friends of Welgemeend, Frank and Lizelle Kilbourn, Strauss & Co, Delaire Graff Estate and others, Art Month at Welgemeend 2021 will officially commence on Saturday, 14 August 2021. Raising funds for the upkeep and maintenance of Welgemeend forms an integral part of the August Art Month programme. Due to Covid-19 restrictions, the annual gala dinner and live auction will not be hosted. An online fundraising auction for the benefit of Welgemeend will, however, be held on the Strauss & Co platform as part of their August Online-Only auction taking place from 16 to 23 August 2021.

Art month concludes on Friday 17 September 2021. Highlights from the month-long programme include a classical piano recital by musical virtuoso Gerhard Joubert on Sunday, 12 September 2021, exhibition walkabouts conducted by Frank Kilbourn and an art lecture series organised by auction house Strauss & Co. A catalogue for the exhibition of the Kilbourn Collection will also be available.

Preceding the official start of Art Month at Welgemeend 2021, Strauss & Co will host the auction preview of the Professor Leon Strydom Collection and the Hall Collection of Linnware in the manor house. The Professor Leon Strydom Collection includes works by leading modern, post-war and contemporary artists including Robert Hodgins, Sydney Kumalo, Gerard de Leeuw, Alexis Preller, Stanley Pinker and Irma Stern. Highlights include a vivid Stern gouache in a dominant yellow palette produced in 1931 during an important three-month work trip to Madeira. The preview will run from 2 to 8 August 2021. The contents of the exhibition will be sold on a virtual-live auction in four sessions, commencing at 11am, on Tuesday 10 August 2021.

This year’s programming marks a return to limited in-person programming following the fully digital edition of Art Month at Welgemeend in 2020. The hybrid nature of Art Month at Welgemeend 2021 is ambitious and unavoidably subject to current health guidelines and state regulations.

“This year’s Art Month at Welgemeend takes place at a difficult time for South Africans, but our aim nonetheless is to offer a vibrant celebration of a special birthday and commemoration of an important friend,” says Lizelle Kilbourn, a lawyer who with her husband, Frank, began collecting art while a student at the University of Johannesburg. “The pandemic has prompted us all to be mindful of our relationships with family, friends, colleagues and the world at large. To live a happy, contented and successful life, one has to have a 360-degree outlook on the world.”

Art education has always been an integral part of Art Month at Welgemeend. This year four Strauss & Co specialists will present fascinating lectures. The programme is as follows:

• Monday, 30 August at 6pm: Strauss & Co decorative arts specialist Sophie-Louise Fröhlich will discuss the evolution of the dinner table from the 16th to the 19th century, with particular focus on the 18th century.
• Tuesday, 31 August at 6pm: Strauss & Co senior art specialist Ian Hunter will provide a glimpse into JH Pierneef’s processes of making and his mastery of most media.   
• Wednesday, 1 September at 6pm: Strauss & Co wine specialist Higgo Jacobs will discuss the rewards in cellaring fine wine correctly, from an investment as well as enjoyment point of view. Lecture includes a tasting.
• Saturday, 4 September at noon: Strauss & Co senior art specialist Matthew Partridge will discuss Irma Stern’s career defining exhibition Peintures D’Afrique in 1947 at the Wildenstein Gallery in Paris.

A comprehensive calendar of events will be released in due course. Please consult the Welgemeend and Strauss & Co websites.
www.welgemeendart.co.za