Maggie Laubser, Irma Stern and Penny Siopis lead Strauss & Co’s flagship September sale

26 Aug 2026

CAPE TOWN – Strauss & Co’s flagship live-virtual Evening Sale on Tuesday, 15 September 2026 in Cape Town features an exceptional group of works by women artists spanning South African modern and contemporary art. Led by important paintings by Maggie Laubser, Penny Siopis and Irma Stern, the sale includes representative works by, among others, Kate Gottgens, Georgina Gratrix, Gladys Mgudlandlu, Esther Mahlangu, Cecily Sash and Maude Sumner.

“We are privileged to be presenting striking works from the 1930s by both Maggie Laubser and Irma Stern in the Evening Sale,” says Elmarie van Straten, Senior Art Specialist and Head of Cape Town Art Department, Strauss & Co. “This was a transformative period for both artists, when the shock and derision they encountered in the 1920s gave way to broadening appreciation and institutional support. Laubser and Stern came to represent the vanguard of South African painting. Painters such as Kate Gottgens, Georgina Gratrix and Penny Siopis have inherited this mantle, as is clear from the daring and ambitious works included in the Evening Sale.”

Irma Stern has been a bellwether of the South African auction market for well over half a century and is represented in the Evening Sale by portraits, still lifes and marine landscapes. Painted in 1935, Dahlias (estimate R8 – 10 million / US$496 000 – 620 000) portrays a favourite bloom reserved for Stern’s most ambitious flower paintings. Presented at the Criterion Restaurant Ballroom in Johannesburg in May 1935 with a high price tag, the painting sold on the opening day of the exhibition.

Produced in the early 1930s, Maggie Laubser’s Portrait of a Woman with Headscarf Holding Flowers (estimate R700 000 – 1 million / US$43 400 – 62 000) comes with an exceptional provenance. Currently owned by Mrs Elita de Klerk, the work first changed hands through academic and critic Martin L. du Toit, a champion of expressionism who organised Laubser’s first exhibition in the Transvaal in 1931. The painting appeared as a backdrop in former president F. W. de Klerk’s posthumous 2021 video apology for apartheid.  

Laubser’s paintings of working women remained an important part of her output throughout her career, as evident in her double-sided composition from 1976, Portrait of a Woman and Child; A Landscape with Houses in the Background (estimate R400 000 – 600 000 / US$24 800 – 37 200). The Evening Sale includes a broad selection of works by Laubser and Stern, notably gouaches on paper offered at attractive estimates.

Leading the contemporary painting consignment is Penny Siopis’s important glue-and-ink diptych Swarm (estimate R500 000 – 700 000 / US$31 000 – 43 400), which appeared in surveys at the South African National Gallery in 2014 and Wits Art Museum in 2015. Painted in 2014, Georgina Gratrix’s Jewel Face (estimate R300 000 – 500 000 / US$18 600 – 31 000) showcases her dramatic, textural approach to painting. Kate Gottgens’ The Big Rip (estimate R160 000 – 200 000 / US$9 900 – 12 400), dated 2018, showcases her confident handling of colour and space. Her mid-career survey opens at Norval Foundation in September.

A rich account of the changing position and possibilities of women artists in South African art

Together, these works offer a rich account of the changing position and possibilities of women artists in South African art, from the pioneering modernism of Stern and Laubser to the experimental practices of later generations. Their work is presented alongside important examples by leading male modernists and contemporary artists, creating a broad survey of South African painting and sculpture across the last 100 years. Strauss & Co will present a preview exhibition of highlights from the Evening Sale at its gallery at Brickfield Canvas in Woodstock, Cape Town, supported by an online catalogue featuring extensive notes on individual works and their histories. This extends to works by the modernist masters George Pemba, J.H. Pierneef, Gerard Sekoto and Wolf Kibel.

The Pierneef consignment includes Trees in a Landscape (estimate R800 000 – 1.2 million / US$49 600 – 74 400), acquired directly from the artist by his sister, Susanna Pierneef. Like his contemporaries Laubser and Stern, portraiture formed a significant and recurring aspect of Kibel’s oeuvre, with his studies of children among his most arresting achievements, as evidenced byYoung Boy (estimate R200 000 – 300 000 / US$12 400 – 18 600).

Born a decade after Kibel, George Pemba and Gerard Sekoto are revered for their social realist paintings. Sekoto’s The Mother on the Road (estimate R1.5 – 2 million / US$93 000 – 124 000), painted shortly before his self-imposed exile in 1947, was included in the artist’s career survey at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 1989. Pemba’s 1975 work Communal Supper (estimate R300 000 – 500 000 / US$18 600 – 31 000) shows three youths sharing a meal, typical of his gregarious approach to depicting community.

“While paintings dominate the high-value offerings in the Evening Sale, the sculptural consignment includes exceptional bronzes by a diverse range of post-war and contemporary innovators, including Lucas Sithole and Dylan Lewis,” says Elmarie van Straten.

Along with Sithole’sMedicine Man from 1967 (estimate R200 000 – 300 000 / US$12 400 – 18 600) and Lewis’s Leopard Fragment II (estimate R500 000 – 700 000 / US$31 000 – 43 400), the catalogue features Edoardo Villa’s Standing Figure from 1978 (estimate R30 000 – 50 000 / US$1 900 – 3 100) and William Kentridge’s Female on Podium, Shadow Quartet (2) from 2003 (estimate R600 000 – 800 000 / US$37 200 – 49 600).

The Dylan Lewis work is one of seven works in the catalogue whose sale will benefit Dassenberg Horse and Dog Rescue Centre on Touchwood Farm, a social initiative caring for abused and abandoned horses and dogs across Atlantis and Malmesbury. Presented in collaboration with Everard Read, the special collection features works by Lewis, Velaphi Mzimba, Blessing Ngobeni, Caryn Scrimgeour, Paul Sekete, Helmut Starke and Vivien van der Merwe.

Strauss & Co is also pleased to present, alongside the art sales, their trio of Mid-Century Modern auctions, including a live sale on Tuesday, 16 September 2026 at 7 pm and two online sales running from 18 August to 16 September 2026.

Beyond including some of Mid-Century Modern’s most important designs, the sales explore the evolution of the 20^th century modern aesthetic, beginning with Art Nouveau at the end of the 19^th century and ending with Postmodernism in the 1970s.

Marc-Anthony Hewson of LIM curated the Strauss & Co gallery this September, featuring a selection of furniture and design objects from their trio of Mid-Century Modern Auctions. Open for viewing until 16 September 2026.

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