South African Design: Past & Present - A Journey Through Materials and Memory

25 Jun 2025

Strauss & Co is pleased to present ‘South African Design: Past & Present’, a sale tracing the heritage of South African design across centuries of creative expression. The Timed Online Auction, closing on Wednesday, July 9th, highlights diverse design objects through two sessions: ‘Cape Interiors: Furniture, Metalware, Silver & Glass’ and ‘Interior Elements: Wood, Metal, Fibre, Ceramic & Glass Art.’

The earliest work dates from the 17th century and is a special large Japanese Arita VOC dish (estimate R60,000 – R80,000). The circular dish, decorated with a central VOC monogram surrounded by two ho-ho birds, pomegranates and camellias, exemplifies the style of dishes traded by the VOC from their small trading post on the artificial island of Deshima in Nagasaki bay. Japanese artisans in Arita produced these porcelain dishes with Dutch VOC monograms from 1668 – 1720, commissioned through the Dutch trading post and serving as early branding for high-ranking Dutch East India Company officials, highlighting early globalisation through the fusion of Japanese craftsmanship with European trade demands.

Tracing a long history of furniture craft, the sale presents 18th and 19th century Cape furniture, including tables, cabinets, classical chairs and includes measures, tableware settings and glassware. Highlights include a Cape stinkwood, beefwood and ebony armoire from the late 18th century (estimate R250,000 – R300,000) — a large cabinet with arched moulded pediment above panelled doors enclosing three shelves and drawers below. A harlequin set of ten Cape stinkwood Neo-classical side chairs from the late 18th/early 19th century (estimate R70,000 – R90,000) demonstrates the refined craftsmanship of the period. Each chair features shaped top rails with lyre splats and riempie seats. The sale also includes a Cape Neo-classical stinkwood, teak and fruitwood rusbank from the early 19th century (estimate R40,000 – R50,000), its four-chair back carved with oval cartouches and floral sprays above curved arms.

Another standout is an 18th-century brass konfoor (estimate R15,000 – R18,000). This portable brazier embodies the cultural history of the Cape Colony. Konfoors were essential household items used to keep kettles, coffee pots and urns warm. These vessels, often in brass or copper, featured pierced bodies for ventilation and were designed with a central receptacle that held live coals to warm vessels placed above.

‘South African Design: Past & Present’ honours the legacy of Cape silver through a significant assemblage including jugs, teapot stands, tea and coffee sets, and bowls. These pieces trace the evolution of South African silversmithing from the most celebrated masters — Lawrence Holme Twentyman, Gerhardus Lotter, Martinus Lourens Smith and Johan Hendrik Vos. Standout pieces include a Cape silver covered sugar bowl by Gerhardus Lotter from c.1810-1824 (estimate R R80,000 – R100,000) and a Cape silver sugar caster (estimate R 180,000 – R220,000), an urn-shaped caster with beaded borders. 

“Uniting the two auction sessions is a celebration of the versatility of materials — metal, glass, clay, wood, fibre — and how artists and artisans have transformed them over time into works of wonder, rich in both tradition and innovation. Each session focuses on specific materials and their evolution through design objects spanning decorative and functional use, varying in scale, period, and process. They explore the qualities and meanings of materials often overlooked — the warmth and grain of wood, the malleability and strength of metal, the flexibility and texture of natural fibres, and the clarity and fragility of glass,” says Jill Van Dugteren, Strauss & Co Design and Decorative Arts Coordinator

The second session of the sale celebrates designers deeply rooted within their communities, whose work draws inspiration from their environments while actively benefiting the societies where these objects are created. Among these is the collaboration born from preservation and transformation: established in 2020, The Beach Hut Trust works to preserve, protect and promote Muizenberg’s iconic beach huts — considered among South Africa’s most recognisable structures. The HUT x Always Welcome Design Challenge, in partnership with The Beach Hut Trust, invited designers to breathe new life into reclaimed timber from these beloved structures, transforming weathered wood into collectable furniture pieces. These pieces carry within them the stories of Muizenberg’s shores, with a portion of auction proceeds benefiting The Beach Hut Trust and other Muizenberg-based charitable causes. 

Other featured local designers demonstrate unique approaches to design, often reclaiming materials, techniques and processes in creating beautiful objects. Among them is furniture by South African Mid Century producer EE Meyer, who left an indelible mark on the design landscape; acclaimed furniture designer Haldane Martin, whose works are manufactured and assembled in Cape Town by a handpicked team of specialist local manufacturers and international suppliers; and Joe Paine & Nathan Gates, who have reimagined the grandfather clock (estimate R 60,000 – R70,000), as both design and conceptual marker of time. Their ‘Now Now’ clock for the Future Heirlooms project explores themes of memory and generational legacy. The clock features intricate sounds — echoing through chimes, jackals calling, lullabies — with buyers able to customise these with bespoke sound recordings by the sound engineer. The piece is an audiovisual artwork designed not only to tell time, but to mark its relentless passage and its ephemerality.

Contemporary voices resonate throughout the sale, each piece speaking to the ongoing evolution of South African design. Casamento’s Ella Meadow Armchair (estimate R 45,000 – R55,000) showcases their innovative approach, where skilled artisans employ meticulous hand-stitching techniques using waxed twines and bamboo yarns, creating pieces inspired by African heritage and nature’s forms. Embracing diverse materials, artists continue ancient dialogues with clay and wood through Nesta Nala and her daughter Thembile’s Ukhambas and their traditional Zulu vessel-making, while Ian Garrett (Vase with relief pattern, estimate R 12, 000 – R15, 000), Digby Hoets (Jardinière with inverted rim and relief pattern, estimate R 12, 000 – R14, 000) and Andrew Walford (Large tile with decorative markings and motifs, estimate R 12, 000 – R14, 000) each explore ceramics’ expressive possibilities through relief patterns and decorative motifs. Conrad Hicks challenges boundaries with his playfully titled Bowl Avec Hole (R 140 000 – R170 000) crafted in copper and Rodney Band hand-hews large sculptural bowls from carefully sourced logs, revealing each wood’s unique colour and character through sensitive turning.

Paper, often overlooked as merely ephemeral, reveals its transformative potential in Quazi Design’s Sheba Table Lamp (estimate R1,200 – R1,400), entirely handmade from waste newspaper, water-based glues, natural pigments and eco varnish — the lamps highlight what began as an experiment in socially conscious craft and has now blossomed into a thriving community enterprise, supporting local women artisans in eSwatini. 

In Southern Africa, Ndebele artists crafted beadworks worn on special ceremonial occasions. The Jocolo in particular (Ndebele Bridal Apron (Jocolo), estimate R 10,000 – R15,000) was made to be worn by those entering into womanhood. Crafted from glass seed beads, goatskin and sinew with striking geometric designs in bold blocks of texture and colour, the Jocolo is exemplary of the classic Ndebele style found in various objects, including the exterior walls of homes. These ceremonial pieces make for exceptional artworks when displayed on walls, their bold patterns and colours creating powerful visual statements in contemporary settings.

‘South African Design: Past & Present’ traces the unbroken thread of creativity that connects South Africa’s design past with its present, revealing how materials and makers continue to shape our cultural landscape.