Archived

Strauss & Co pulls back the wraps on Winter Online Sale

1 Jul 2020

The artworks have been split up into various categories to make browsing through the sale simple and enjoyable. Jo’burg Bar occupied a unique place in the heady artworld of Cape Town in the early-2000s. It was not only a time of change but in many ways pre-shadowed a turning point in the local art landscape. Art patron and ubiquitous host Bruce Gordon offered a space where emerging talents, fans and wannabees could commune together over shotglasses of absinthe with promises and dreams, scheming up a new future as the night(s) wore on. Anybody who dreamed of being somebody was there and Bruce was their generous patron. He accepted artworks in lieu of settling bar tabs; he closed and locked the doors until dawn for those who couldn’t get home and he looked after the people of Long Street. (‘Look after the street and the street will look after you’ was one of his catchphrases.) So unequivocal was his place that eventually he became an artwork himself, so designated by Ed Young in his foundational work, and is now ‘owned’ by the Iziko South African National Gallery.

Harpers and Queen magazine designated Jo’burg Bar as one of the top twenty bars in the world and in its heyday you could spot Madonna, Colin Farrell, Leonardo diCaprio, Dennis Hopper, and Salma Hayek amongst its patrons. Bruce Gordon was the ‘lubricant’ for many an art project in those exhilarating (instead of heady) days that started what was to become something of a ‘movement’ in South African art.

Visiting artists were always directed to its neon portals. Jeff Koons had a party thrown in his honour there, even though only a handful of guests pitched up that cold, blustery night. Jo’burg was a pioneer in LGBTQI+ events in the city centre, being the venue for the legendary ‘Gay Nite’ parties; its music events saw everyone from Karen Zoid, Odidiva to Die Antwood perform. It was, in a word, the ‘scene’.

The Online auctions present an excellent opportunity to acquire a work on paper by some of our most popular artists. There is a wide selection, with plenty of variety. The session commences with two recent works by Swazi artist, Nandipha Mntambo, Opening I and II (each R25?000 – 35?000) executed in cow hair on Fabriano paper. Robert Hodgins continues to excel at auction with some of his paintings reaching dizzy heights, so his more affordable watercolour, Bundles of Fun (R30?000 – 50?000) is sure to encourage competitive bidding. Other artists include Cecil Skotnes, Adolph Jentsch, Pieter van der Westhuizen, Fred Page, Norman Catherine, and last but not least, the evergreen William Timlin.

Fledgling collectors should consider prints and multiples as a good springboard to a comprehensive art collection, and the selection on offer is mouth-watering. Ranging from William Kentridge, Marlene Dumas, Deborah Bell and Claudette Schreuders, through to Esther Mahlangu and Peter Clarke, there is plenty to satisfy the appetite.

Two rare examples of sculptures by Solly Disner, art advisor and mentor to artist, Paul du Toit, will arouse interest. Disner, a self-taught sculptor, worked in wood, bronze, verdite, marble and ivory, his style developing from representations of the human figure to total abstraction, as is reflected in the examples being offered (R6?000 – 9?000 each).

Amongst the paintings are examples by familiar blue-chip South African artists, such as Pierneef’s Landscape, South West Africa (R60?000 – 80?000), Maud Sumner’s Namibian Landscape (R50?000 – 70?000) and an early work by Gregoire Boonzaier, depicting the windswept sand dunes at Kommetjie, painted in 1928 before it became the popular fishing and surfing spot it is today (R30?000 – 50?000).  There is a broad cross-section to suit every taste – and every pocket.  The session includes paintings by Christo Coetzee, George Velaphi Mzimba, Andrew Verster, Hussein Salim, Simon Stone, Cecily Sash, Terence McCaw and many more.

One of the highlights of the auction is the significant body of contemporary San art on offer. The works were created by a group of !Xu and Kwe former soldiers, who had served as trackers in the South African–Angolan conflict of the 1970s and 80s. They were relocated to Schmidtsdrift, just outside Kimberley, at the end of the war. A community arts project was launched, and despite very little training, the artists produced phenomenal work, at first prints, gouache drawings and paintings, and later textile design and ceramic art. This art is part of the lineage of San or bushman art dating back over 20 000 years, including the well-known, pre-colonial Bushman rock art, the visual expression of San prisoners at the Cape in the care of Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd in the late nineteenth century, Walter Battiss’s drawing experiments with the San he encountered in South West Africa (Namibia) in 1948 and, more recently, the art workshops conducted by Mark Atwood of The Artists’ Press with another group of San artists in Ghansi, north-western Botswana. Contemporary San art deals with very similar subject matter and figuration to its ancient predecessors. The University of Pretoria has recent acquired a large number of this group’s works, and books have been published on this phenomenon. Their story is poignantly told by David Robbins in his book, On the Bridge of Goodbye: The Story of South Africa’s Discarded San Soldiers (Jonathan Ball, 2007).

The decorative arts section is a decorator’s dream highlighted by an array of Italian and French lamps, tables, and gilt-bronze wall lights from one of the foremost Paris design houses, blending the classical with the sleek contemporary look. The sale concludes with the Wine session, a relatively new addition to the Strauss portfolio, which is proving to be highly successful and consists of mostly iconic European wines.