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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John Koenakeefe Mohl

South African 1903-1985 


John Koenakeefe Motlhakangna (known professionally as John Mohl) was born in 1903, the son of a carpenter/sculptor, in the small town of Dinokana near Zeerust in the Northwest Province of South Africa.

As a child all Mohl wanted to do was draw, and would draw on rocks and use clay to fashion animals. When his father threatened to take him out of school to tend goats, the Reverend Alfred John Haile, then principal of the London Mission Society’s Tiger Kloof Educational Institution (known as Moeding in Setswana) intervened and implored his father to allow him to continue to study and draw. Mohl graduated from Moeding as a teacher and went on to study art in Namibia (then German South West Africa) at the Windhoek School of Art. With support from the London Mission Society and the Lutheran Church, he spent five years in Düsseldorf, Germany, studying at the Kunstakadamie. At this time he Germanised and shortened his surname to Mohl.

Mohl returned to South Africa and settled in Sophiatown in 1944 where he started teaching art from his home, making him the first black art teacher to establish an independent art school. It was known as The White Studio. He also established the Apollo Gallery in Johannesburg using a pseudonym, Frank van Melten, since under the apartheid laws pertaining at the time, as a black man, he was not allowed to open a gallery in an area designated as ‘white’.

Mohl was a founding member in 1960 of the popular group Artists under the Sun, which held open-air art exhibitions in Johannesburg at the Zoo Lake and Joubert Park.

He died in Soweto in 1985 and was posthumously awarded the “Order of Ikhamanga in Silver for his excellent contribution to the field of art. His works remain an inspiration to many budding and established artists”.


50 lots offered      80.00% sold      ZAR 3 685 598
 

Including Premium and VAT Results include Buyer's Premium and VAT
John Koenakeefe Mohl; Sunset in Serowe
11 Mar 2024
Sold for ZAR 29 313
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
John Koenakeefe Mohl; Riders in the Snow
19 Feb 2024
Starting at ZAR 100 000
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John Koenakeefe Mohl; Sunset in Serowe
11 Sep 2023
Starting at ZAR 30 000
 
John Koenakeefe Mohl; Street Storm in the Rain, Soweto Johannesburg
11 Apr 2023
Sold for ZAR 64 488
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
John Koenakeefe Mohl; A Country Scene in Storm, Cycling Home in W. TVL. (S.A.)
11 Apr 2023
Sold for ZAR 23 450
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
John Koenakeefe Mohl; Driven to the Fold at Sunset, Western Transvaal, South Africa
28 Nov 2022
Sold for ZAR 30 000
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
John Koenakeefe Mohl; Sunset in Serowe
3 Nov 2022
Starting at ZAR 35 000
 
John Koenakeefe Mohl; A New May Moon
3 Oct 2022
Sold for ZAR 32 830
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
John Koenakeefe Mohl; Horsemen, Lesotho Mountains
3 Oct 2022
Sold for ZAR 52 763
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
John Koenakeefe Mohl; Washing Collector in Storm in Johannesburg Townships in 1965
20 Sep 2022
Sold for ZAR 147 940
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
John Koenakeefe Mohl; Caught in Storm in Soweto in Soweto Johannesburg (S.A)
20 Sep 2022
Sold for ZAR 147 940
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
John Koenakeefe Mohl; Cyclists in Single File
25 Jul 2022
Starting at ZAR 25 000
 

VAT is charged on both hammer and premium for daggered lots.

Results in green indicate post sales.