September ART and Embodied: A Selection of Works Exploring the Figure

18 Sep 2025

Strauss & Co is pleased to present a special focused sale “Embodied: A Selection of Works Exploring the Figure” (17th – 30th September 2025),  available online on www.straussart.co.za. The sale coincides with “September ART”, a monthly timed online sale featuring works that highlight the breadth of South African art through its curated sessions: Art Club, Paintings, Works on Paper, Prints and Multiples, Sculpture and Ceramics and Books and Portfolios. 

“Embodied” explores how artists represent the human form across different contexts and relationships, exploring figures in moments of contemplation, passionate connection, work, and rest. These artistic representations fundamentally connect us to the human experience, reflecting how we live and feel our way through the world. The artists included in the selection, from Irma Stern, Freida Lock, Maud Sumner, Alexis Preller, Obie Oberholzer, Robert Hodgins, Zen Marie, to Joni Brenner, reflect how we understand life through physical presence, depicting the human form as a means of showing how bodies appear and inhabit time and space. 

Peter Clarke leads the selection with two noteworthy works. His Seated Male Figure from 1956 (estimate R30 000 – R50 000) subtly rendered in monochromatic marks, captures a moment of introspection, while his Friday Night (estimate R150 000 – R200 000) painting depicts the intimacy between couples with warmth and sensitivity.

The sale highlights two works by a lesser-known artist, Hindy Rutenberg – Seated Girl (estimate R 6 000 – R8 000) and The Carpet Menders (estimate R 8 000 – R12 000). Rutenberg was an expressionist artist who received limited recognition during her lifetime. Little is documented about this 20th-century artist, making her two works particularly intriguing as a reanimation of forgotten histories. Rutenberg’s careful, expressive painting style shares qualities with German Expressionist artists such as Irma Stern, whose celebrated portraits highlight a painterly and delicate sensibility to the human form. 

Other highlights in the sale include works by John Meyer (From the New World, estimate R 80 000 – R120 000), Adriaan Boshoff (Gathering Wood, estimate R 30 000 – R50 000) and Lionel Smit (Day Series #, estimate R 50 000 – 70 000), each contributing to the sale’s exploration of how artists understand and represent the human figure.

While  “Embodied: A Selection of Works Exploring the Figure”  focuses on the figure, “September ART” highlights a variety of works across varying mediums, including David Koloane’s The Dog and the Moon (estimate R6 000 – R8 000), which is a hand-coloured etching on paper featuring his characteristic mark-making in vibrant colours. Alexia Vogel’s Meander (estimate R70 000 – R90 000), a dreamlike landscape rendered in unusual colours that creates a fantasy-like quality. Gordon Vorster‘s Landscape with Abstracted Zebra (estimate R20 000 – R30 000) is an abstract work, suggesting galloping zebras through pattern rather than direct representation, as well as Durant Sihlali’s Horses at the Timberyard (estimate R10 000 – R15 000).

The sale also features an extensive collection of art books and portfolios. Notable offerings include titles, “Irma Stern: Catalogue of the Collections in the Irma Stern Museum”, “Thomas Baines: An Artist in the Service of Science in South Africa”, and P.G. Nel and F.E.G. Nilant’s “J.H. Pierneef: His Life and His Work”, alongside “Die Hout- en Linosneë van J.H. Pierneef”.

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