Artists

From Albert Adams to Portia Zvavahera, Strauss & Co maintains a detailed database of every artist sold at auction since 2009. Whether it is painting, sculpture, works on paper, photography, ceramics or new media, this searchable database lists by artist every lot offered and provides aggregated data useful to collectors. Famous South African artists like William Kentridge, JH Pierneef, Alexis Preller and Irma Stern are introduced with helpful biographies along with the best contemporary artists.



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Cecil Higgs

South African 1898-1986 


Cecil Higgs was born in the Orange Free State and finished her schooling in Grahamstown. She studied briefly at the Grahamstown School of Art before all educational institutions were closed in 1917 because of the Spanish influenza epidemic. In 1920, she went to study at Goldsmiths' College in London, and from 1926, at the Royal Academy under Walter Sickert. Higgs also spent some time at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, under André Lhote. The great depression affected her family’s ability to provide financial support, and Higgs returned to South Africa in 1933, taking up an offer of a studio in Stellenbosch in 1935. She held her first solo exhibition at the university that year and met fellow artists Wolf Kibel, Lippy Lipshitz and John Dronsfield, who remained lifelong friends of hers. In 1939, she joined the New Group, started by Lipschitz, Freida Lock, Gregoire Boonzaier and Terence McCaw in 1937.

Higgs’s work included figural subjects, portraits and still lifes, and after her move to Sea Point, Cape Town, in 1946, marine subjects became the focus of many compositions, particularly shells, sea anemones and rock pools. Her work became increasingly abstract as she developed her interest in the rhythmic interplay of form and colour, the materiality of thickly encrusted paint applied with a palette knife rather than a brush, and the shimmering effects of light across the textured surface of the canvas. The last major exhibition of Higgs’s work was a retrospective to celebrate her 75th birthday at the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town in 1975.


145 lots offered      55.86% sold      ZAR 3 135 881
 

  Including Premium and VAT Results include Buyer's Premium and VAT
Cecil Higgs; Abstract with Shells
25 Oct 2022
Sold for ZAR 21 105
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Cecil Higgs; Rockpool
3 Oct 2022
Starting at ZAR 3 000
 
Cecil Higgs; Circular Blue Abstract
3 Oct 2022
Starting at ZAR 18 000
 
Cecil Higgs; Shells
29 Aug 2022
Sold for ZAR 5 277
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Cecil Higgs; Garden at Onrus
29 Aug 2022
Starting at ZAR 2 800
 
Cecil Higgs; Untitled 1974
28 Jun 2022
Starting at ZAR 18 000
 
Cecil Higgs; Composition
28 Jun 2022
Starting at ZAR 12 000
 
Cecil Higgs; A Rock Pool Composition
28 Jun 2022
Sold for ZAR 2 932
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Cecil Higgs; Abstract
25 Apr 2022
Sold for ZAR 2 932
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Cecil Higgs; Flowers in a Vase
25 Apr 2022
Starting at ZAR 15 000
 
Cecil Higgs; Bus Ticket
25 Apr 2022
Sold for ZAR 11 725
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Cecil Higgs; Kelp
25 Apr 2022
Sold for ZAR 14 070
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT

Results in green indicate post sales.