Strauss & Co flagship March auctions of modern and contemporary art open with Sterns from Boiskin Art Collection

18 Mar 2026

Strauss & Co is privileged to offer works by leading South African modernists acquired by Cape Town collectors Stan and Li Boiskin at its flagship live-virtual auctions in Cape Town on Tuesday, 24 March 2026. Assembled over many decades by Stan and Li Boiskin, well-known cultural patrons active in community organisations and public life, the collection includes works by Walter Battiss, Maggie Laubser, George Pemba, J. H. Pierneef, Durant Sihlali, Cecil Skotnes, Irma Stern, Maud Sumner and Maurice van Essche.

“This carefully curated collection reflects a lifetime of shared dedication to the arts and stands as a tribute to Li Boiskin (1941–2025),” says Bina Genovese, Managing Executive, Strauss & Co. “Among her many achievements, she was the first person elected to two successive terms as Chairperson of the Cape South African Jewish Board of Deputies. In 2022 she received the Cape SAJBD Jewish Vision Award for her extraordinary service to Jewish life in South Africa. Praised for her integrity and moral clarity, Li Boiskin is remembered for her intelligence, generosity, compassion, strong moral compass and distinctive elegance.”

The Stan and Li Boiskin Art Collection includes a robust selection of works on paper by Irma Stern, notably gouaches and drawings, examples of which will open both the Day Sale and Evening Sale. Stern’s charcoal drawing Woman with Urn from 1963 (estimate R60 000 – 80 000 / $3 559 – 4 745) opens the Day Sale. Made during her first visit to the Belgian Congo in 1942, Stern’s gouache Canoes on the Congo River (estimate R150 000 – 200 000 / $8 897 – 11 862) will open the premier Evening Sale.

The genres of these two lots, one a portrait and the other a landscape study, broadly reflect the collecting interests represented in the Boiskin Art Collection. The collection includes superb landscape studies by Walter Battiss, Maggie Laubser, George Pemba, J. H. Pierneef, Durant Sihlali and Maud Sumner. Pierneef’s Mountain Landscape with a Tree in the Foreground (estimate R300 000 – 500 000 / $17 793 – 29 656) dates from 1923, a period of growing national acclaim. Laubser’s magical Landscape with Houses and a Figure (estimate R350 000 – 450 000 / $20 759 – 26 690) was previously owned by Lithuanian-born sculptor Solly Disner.

Among the portraits, standout lots include Maggie Laubser’s Portrait of a Woman with Headdress and Beads (1958) and Irma Stern’s Cape Flower Seller (1946), both incorporating gouache (estimate for each R150 000 – 200 000 / $8 897 – 11 862). Another Stern gouache, Two Women in Venice (estimate R40 000 – 60 000 / $2 372 – 3 559) was made in 1950, a when the artist began representing South Africa at the Venice Biennale.

The Boiskin Art Collection also includes four works by George Pemba, among them Combat (estimate R350 000 – 500 000 / $20 759 – 29 656), a dynamic martial scene from 1961. Two further works by Pemba speak to Li Boiskin’s qualities of leadership, mentorship and religious tolerance. Painted in 1980, Sangoma (estimate R250 000 – 350 000 / $14 828 – 20 759) portrays a diviner counselling a mother and child, while The Orator from 1991 (estimate R350 000 – 500 000 / $20 759 – 29 656) depicts a man addressing an attentive group of listeners at a time of democratic change.

Alongside their engagement with the arts, the Boiskins were deeply committed to social causes centred on education, remembrance and social cohesion. They supported Holocaust education initiatives, interfaith programmes and projects aimed at reducing prejudice through historical awareness. Their philanthropy also extended to welfare and community initiatives that preserved immigrant histories and supported vulnerable families.

Named in honour of Li Boiskin, the Li Boiskin Jewish Social Justice Fellowship is an annual award intended to advance the Jewish community’s engagement with social justice and equity. The fellowship is made possible through the generous support of the Mauerberger Foundation Fund.

Adds Bina Genovese: “It is an honour for Strauss & Co to present this fine collection of modernists, assembled with such obvious passion and thought by Stan and Li Boiskin. Together, they embodied a form of patronage in which art, education and social responsibility were closely intertwined. Preserving culture, in their view, meant not only caring for artworks but also encouraging dialogue, empathy and mutual respect.”

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