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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Robert Gwelo Goodman

South African 1871-1939 


Robert Goodman was born in Taplow in Buckinghamshire in 1871. He moved with his family to the Cape in 1886 where he attended lessons with JS Morland, the first president of the South African Society of Artists. With Morland’s financial help, the young Goodman continued his training at the Académie Julian in Paris from 1895, before basing himself in London in 1897. He travelled frequently during this period, mainly to the Continent, but also to India and back to South Africa occasionally, where he recorded scenes from the Anglo-Boer War front. He chose to adopt the name Gwelo in the hope of standing out in the London art scene and subsequently signed his work with his now famous ‘RGG’ monogram.

Goodman returned to Cape Town permanently in 1915 and produced a series of works focused on Cape Homesteads, of which the illustrations for Dorothea Fairbridge’s Historic Houses of South Africa, published in 1922, were only a small part. Although he never received formal training in architecture, Goodman’s interest in Cape vernacular architecture and his work alongside Ivan Mitford-Barberton enabled him to play a major role in the so-called Cape Dutch Revival in South Africa, and many of his renovations, adaptations and designs had a lasting impact.

Goodman is undoubtedly one of the country’s most accomplished painters, and a stand-out pastelist. Immersive and memorable paintings of Cape Dutch façades in dappled light, Drakensberg streams, quiet interiors and still lifes, all typically animated with short, flickering strokes of pure colour, mark out a prolific and impressive career. Major private collections inevitably have choice examples, and few local state institutions are without noteworthy ‘Gwelos’ in their survey holdings.


126 lots offered      80.16% sold      ZAR 12 235 636
 

  Including Premium and VAT Results include Buyer's Premium and VAT
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Neethlingshof
16 Sep 2024
Starting at ZAR 50 000
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Robert Gwelo Goodman; Seascape with Table Mountain in the Background
8 Jul 2024
Starting at ZAR 40 000
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Robert Gwelo Goodman; Seascape with Table Mountain in the Background
19 Mar 2024
ZAR 70 000 - 90 000
 
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Pageant of Spring, Newlands
19 Feb 2024
Sold for ZAR 257 950
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Robert Gwelo Goodman; View of Table Mountain
12 Feb 2024
Sold for ZAR 9 380
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Neethlinghof
8 Nov 2023
ZAR 60 000 - 90 000
 
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Lagoon at Umhlanga
7 Nov 2023
Sold for ZAR 100 000
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Robert Gwelo Goodman; The Cottage, Picardie
18 Sep 2023
Sold for ZAR 49 245
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Robert Gwelo Goodman; View of the Ocean
11 Sep 2023
ZAR 4 000 - 6 000
 
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Kirstenbosch
12 Jun 2023
Sold for ZAR 64 488
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Bay of Natal from the Berea
12 Jun 2023
Sold for ZAR 58 625
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
Robert Gwelo Goodman; Mountainous Landscape
8 May 2023
Sold for ZAR 41 038
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT

Results in green indicate post sales.