August Online Auctions - Horizons: Selected South African Landscapes and Seascapes and August ART

1 Aug 2025

In August, Strauss & Co presents two timed online auctions: ‘Horizons: Selected South African Landscapes and Seascapes’ (closing 19 August at 2 pm) and ‘August ART’ (closing 18 August at 2 pm).

‘Horizons: Selected South African Landscapes and Seascapes’ traces South Africa’s rich topography through works by painters who depict the land and seas in diverse forms. The sale showcases artists’ affinity for and appreciation of South African landscapes and seascapes.

Following the widely successful Pierneef etchings and linocut sale, ‘IMPR: Etchings and Linocuts by JH Pierneef’, which achieved a 100% sell-through rate, collectors can enjoy Pierneef’s Near Golden Gate (estimate R60 000 – R80 000), a wonderful watercolour work included in the sale, alongside the small-scale watercolour Farmhouse with Trees (estimate R30 000 – R50 000), rendered in warm tones that highlight the artist’s mastery of landscape art.

The works in the auction range from realist depictions of the landscape, such as Pieter van der Westhuizen’s Landscape with Sheep (estimate R15 000 – R20 000), Tinus de Jongh’s Seascape (estimate R18 000 – R24 000), and Willem Hermanus Coetzer’s Nelspruit TVL (estimate R15 000 – R20 000); to more abstracted depictions, including Sidney Goldblatt’s Abstracted Boats in a Harbour (estimate R10 000 – R15 000), Cecil Skotnes’s A Rocky Landscape (estimate R20 000 – R30 000), and Albert Redelinghuys’s Orange River/Lemoenrivier (estimate R8 000 – R12 000). Sipho Ndlovu’s I Work at Frankfort (estimate R18 000 – R24 000) more directly incorporates portraiture, while Fred Bauer’s Landscape with River (estimate R3 000 – R5 000) is a gently painted watercolour landscape.

Another highlight includes Gerhard Batha’s Lowveld Landscape (estimate R8 000 – R12 000), a richly layered, vibrant and playful rendering of the Lowveld with undulating hills and simplified forms marking homes, clouds and trees. The Austrian-born artist, Batha, came to South Africa in 1969 and has since painted portraits, still lifes, seascapes and landscapes of South African and Mediterranean locations in his characteristic free-style expressionist manner.

Three works by Alice Elahi, considered one of the most accomplished landscape artists in South Africa, are also featured. The works on offer: Landscape with Trees and Mountains (estimate R8 000 – R12 000), Cloud Bank at Mowe Bay, Sea (estimate R20 000 – R30 000), and Grasses in the Wind (estimate R18 000 – R24 000), are indicative of her wide-ranging oeuvre.

‘August ART’, Strauss & Co’s monthly online sale, runs alongside ‘Horizons: Selected South African Landscapes and Seascapes’  and focuses on building a new collector base through largely accessible works across mediums, including paintings, works on paper, prints and multiples, sculptures, ceramics and books.

Following the successful auction of ceramics in the recent ‘Contemporary South African Ceramics: New Perspectives’ sale, and continued demand for ceramic works, ‘August ART’ includes a range of Linnware from the historic Ceramic Studio, which produced beautiful earthenware as early as the 1920s. Highlights include a Platter with Portrait (estimate R2 500 – R3 000), Three Bowls and a Lidded Vessel (estimate R2 000 – R3 000), and a Vase with Foot in Rust and Cream (estimate R3 000 – R5 000). 

Other highlights include works by Walter Battiss, Ruby Swinney, Lena Hugo, Richard Scott, as well as a series of photolithographs on paper by Kudzanai Chiurai.