Brisk trade at Strauss & Co’s late-summer auction culminates in red-hot prices for works by Brice, Preller, Stern and Sekoto

26 Mar 2024

• 94-lot evening sale earns R45.5 million / $2.4 million
• Top lot, Irma Stern’s The Smoker, sold for R17 156 250 / $905 310
• New African record for Lisa Brice landscape, sold for R1 715 625 / $90 531
• Cecil Higgs and Hugo Naudé auction status confirmed
• Strong overall demand for works from diverse periods and media
• World record for Walter Meyer Still life

“After a period of contraction in the art market, not just in South Africa but globally, it was fantastic to break through the glass ceiling with this positive sale,” says Frank Kilbourn, Chairperson, Strauss & Co. “We received strong confirmation from the market that Strauss & Co is on the right track and is .doing the right things in the right way. Pleasingly, a fifth of the works sold went to new buyers. I attribute these positive signals to our constructive energy as a team and steadfast commitment to being Africa’s leading auction house, driven by our continued engagement with new and established clients, sharing passion for Modern and Contemporary art from the continent.”

Painters representative of distinct periods in South African art history excelled at market. Works by canonical modernists Maggie Laubser, Gerard Sekoto and Irma Stern – all three of who will appear in curator Adriano Pedrosa’s main exhibition at the 2024 Venice Biennale – found buyers. Strauss & Co also established an African record for a work by Lisa Brice.

“We confirmed the respected auction status of artists like Lisa Brice, Maggie Laubser, Alexis Preller, Gerard Sekoto, Irma Stern and Vladimir Tretchikoff by achieving excellent prices for our clients,” says Bina Genovese, Executive and Auctioneer, Strauss & Co. “The sale of Irma Stern’s The Smoker reiterated the importance of the artist’s Zanzibar period (1939-45), as well as Strauss & Co’s status as the premier reseller of this canonical South African artist’s work.”

Interest in Alexis Preller, whose vivid painterly work is currently being surveyed at Norval Foundation, was especially pronounced. Preller’s Young King, a marvel of mythological symbols painted in 1964, sold to a room bidder for R4 346 250 / $229 345. A flock of bids for Preller’s South African Beauty, a surrealistic portrait from 1950, culminated in a sale price of R3 431 250 / $181 062, more than double the high estimate.

Two works capturing Lisa Brice’s enthusiastic return to painting in the early 2000s were the subject of considerable international interest. Strauss & Co achieved a new African record for Brice when it sold her Ten Years Gone-Gr, a large work in an unusual palette depicting a Trinidadian landscape, to a telephone bidder for R1 715 625 / $90 531. Several  bidders chased after an untitled Brice nude from 2005 – it sold for R1 258 125 / $66 389.

Adds Bina Genovese: “An important hallmark of any sale is diversity and there was astonishing depth in the bidding for works across all periods and media. We achieved strong prices for contemporary sculptures by Dylan Lewis and Frank van Reenen. We also posted estimate-beating results for singular paintings by unrelated painters John Meyer and Walter Meyer. I was personally delighted to see the resurgence in interest in modernist painters Cecil Higgs and Hugo Naudé, as well as the top prices earned by Deborah Bell, Esther Mahlangu, Mongezi Ncaphayi, Bela Sara and Diane Victor.”

Notable individual sales that far exceeded their pre-sale estimates included Cecil Higgs’ Arum Lilies from 1961, which sold for R485 205 / $25 610 and Deborah Bell’s Dreaming of Cuba, a mixed-media work on paper from 1995, which sold for R293 125 / $15 472. Two works by Walter Meyer soared: the still life Tiger Lilies in a Vase from 2001 fetched R438 995 / $23 171 and the landscape Sunset over Grass Field from 1999 went for R164 150 / $8 664.

Held concurrently with the flagship sale, the 65-lot online-only Day Sale: Re/Presentation of the Figure earned R1 776 300 / $93 742 from 70% lots sold. Painting once again ruled the day, with works by Robert Hodgins, Blessing Ngobeni, Hennie Niemann Jnr, J.H. Pierneef and Kirsten Sims earning top prices.

Notable results for works in other media sold in the day sale included Lucas Sithole’s wood sculpture Elongated Figure, which traded above estimate for R93 800 / $4 951. A diamond-shaped vase by Hylton Nel achieved R44 555 / $2 352, while a pair of ceramic dogs by Nel’s protégé, Nico Masemola, went for R46 900 / $2 475.

www.straussart.co.za