Strauss & Co June sales show strong Eastern Cape focus 

8 Jun 2026

Strauss & Co presents a unique art historical showcase to our collectors this June. Taking place between the 1^st and 25^th June, this Eastern Cape focussed sale, prominently features the Grahamstown Group, and many other of the provinces best known artists in a diverse cross-section of 113 artworks on offer. In its fourth iteration, this sale draws on rich history and diversity and its varied artistic communities. As Jeanne Wright describes in her introductory essay to the sale, the Eastern Cape has had an established fine art community stemming from its 1820 Settler beginnings which includes illustrious national names like Thomas Baines and Thomas Bowler who visually documented the frontier landscape, flora and colonial life in the Western painting tradition. 

In the second half of the 20^th Century, nationally prominent tertiary teaching institutions such as Rhodes University in what is  (now Makhanda), the Port Elizabeth Art School, which is (now part of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University), and the famous Fort Hare University, were largely staffed with British teachers who brought traditions of the Royal Academy. Artists like Jane and Jack Heath, Dorothy Kay, Betsy Fordyce, Joan Wright, Fred Page, Stuart Titcombe and Herbert McWilliams all belonged to the Eastern Province Society of Arts and Crafts (EPSAC), a prominent cultural society. McWilliams, in particular was associated with the development and art education of Black South Africans at both Fort Hare and Lovedale, institutions which mentored artists like George Pemba and Gerard Sekoto. 

Another major art project to emerge from the region, whose work features in the sale, is the Keiskamma Art Project, producing unique and tactile tapestries, depicting fauna and flora of the region.  Other, perhaps more prominent artists owe their origins or part of their artistic development to the region, including Hylton Nel and those artists he has taught andmentored. Key artworks by Andile Dyalvane and Vusi Khumalo add further interest to this session.  

The Grahamstown Group is an historically significant art movement from the region, founded in 1964 by Rhodes University academic Brian Bradshaw, who headed the Fine Art department through the 1960s and 1970s. The Group, heavily influenced by Bradshaw and his successor Robert Brooks, developed a unique and influential approach to landscape painting during this time which was not universally critically understood or appreciated – at times attracting accusations of elitism and academicism. Contemporary artists who trained under both men include Penny Siopis, Nigel Mullins and Tanya Poole-Mullins, Carl Bekker, Dominic Thorburn and Cyril Coetzee.  

Of the works on offer in June, Tom Matthews, Robert Brooks, Jennifer Crooks, Hilary Graham, JossNell, Michael Hallier and Noel Hodnett were all at the Art School at about the same time and were closely associated with Brian and Maureen Bradshaw.  

June ART also presents a full gamut of work across South Africa’s modern and contemporary art histories. Between 1 and 17 June, this timed online sale is split into sessions organised by medium. In the painting session, there is highly covetable work by Esther Mahlangu, Sam Nhlengethwa and renowned contemporary artist Blessing Ngobeni. These go along with mid-century modern artists like Adriaan Boshoff, Hugo Naude and Gregoire Boonzaier. The works on paper session offers luminaries like Nelson Makamo, Alexis Preller and Ephraim Ngataneat a wide range of price points. In the session featuring prints and multiples incredible work by masters of the medium like Cecil Skotnes, William Kentridge and Robert Hodgins are on offer.