Two Cape icons, Stern and Tretchikoff, highlights of Strauss & Co’s flagship Cape Town auction series, including single-artist sale for Verster

29 Aug 2025

Cape Town – Strauss & Co is pleased to announce details of its September auctions of modern and contemporary art, to be held in Cape Town from 16 to 18 September 2025. The three-part programme includes: a live Evening Sale of high-value Modern and Contemporary Art, an online Day Sale of Modern and Contemporary art and a landmark single-artist online auction devoted to Andrew Verster.

The premier Evening Sale (Tuesday, 16 September 2025 at 7pm) is led by two paintings from the 1950s by Irma Stern and Vladimir Tretchikoff. Painted in his signature blue-green palette, Tretchikoff’s Malay Girl (estimate R4 – 6 million / $226 870 – 340 300) was first shown at Cape Town’s Argus Gallery in 1951. Produced seven years later, Stern’s Fishing Harbour, Algeciras (1958) (estimate R4 – 6 million / $226 870 – 340 300) depicts a Mediterranean harbour scene from the artist’s late-career travels in Spain.

“Collector interest in Vladimir Tretchikoff’s work has reached new heights following the sale of his 1955 portrait Lady from the Orient, which achieved R31.9 million / $1.8 million at our Johannesburg auction in May,” says Bina Genovese, Managing Executive, Strauss & Co. “We are delighted to be presenting six paintings by Tretchikoff in his adopted home of Cape Town, ranging from a rare self-portrait to a heroic depiction of a Masai man. We are equally proud to showcase works across generations, from early modern masters like Pierneef, Sekoto and Van Wouw, to contemporary artists such as William Kentridge, Pieter Hugo, Nandipha Mntambo and Sam Nhlengethwa. It is a survey that captures the vitality of South African art, past and present.”

The Evening Sale also includes one of Anton van Wouw’s early masterpieces, Leemans, The Postman (estimate R800 000 – 1 million / $45 390 – 56 750), conceived and modelled in 1901, cast at Massa

foundry in Italy and first exhibited in Pretoria in 1904. Other modern highlights include J.H. Pierneef’s Pienaarsrivier (estimate R500 000 – 700 000 / $28 400 – 39 750), Alexis Preller’s The Poet of 1965, an early painting of a favoured subject (estimate R700 000 – 900 000 /$39 750 – 51 045), and two vibrant paintings by Gerard Sekoto from 1967.

Among the contemporary works, a notable highlight is an untitled William Kentridge drawing of a man reading (estimate R800 000 – 1.2 million / $45 390 – 68 050), one of two gifts by the artist to his dealer Linda Givon in this sale. The offering further includes Robert Hodgins’ Street Scene from 2001 (estimate R500 000 – 700 000 / $28 400 – 39 750), two photographs from Pieter Hugo’s acclaimed Hyena and Other Men series from 2005-07, and paintings by Deborah Bell, Norman Catherine, Nelson Makamo, Blessing Ngobeni, Sam Nhlengethwa and Mikhael Subotzky.

The September programme also marks a milestone with Andrew Verster: Gorgeous and Free (1 – 18 September 2025), the first-ever auction devoted exclusively to the celebrated Durban painter, educator and activist Andrew Verster. Spanning 33 lots, the auction surveys Verster’s diverse practice in oil, watercolour, printmaking, tapestry and sculpture. Leading the sale is The Expulsion (1987), a four-panel painting featured in Sue Williamson’s seminal book Resistance Art (1989). Highlights include five monumental Verster tapestries from the Engen Collection, produced in collaboration with Stephens Tapestry Studio for the Louis Karol-designed Mobil Court building on Cape Town’s Thibault Square, opened in 1987.