The Engen Collection
Live Virtual Auction, 24 June 2025
The Engen Collection
About the SessionThe Engen Collection is a corporate collection that highlights a crucial chapter in South African art history.
Initially put together as the Mobil collection in the early 1980s, it brings to market a selection of works from a broader archive of over two hundred artworks, offering insights into the networks, pedagogies and creative resistances that shaped South African abstract art in the early 1980s. It comprises of paintings, tapestries, works on paper and photographs representing a significant corporate investment in South African contemporary art during a period of intense cultural and political transformation. The collection engages with a moment when South African artists were developing visual languages that could operate across the cultural and artistic boundaries. These artists, including Bill Ainslie, Simon Stone, Gabriel Tsolo, Judith Mason, Andrew Verster, Pippa Skotnes and Gail Altschuler, documented individual artistic development alongside the collective creation of alternative artistic practice.
The collection traces the intellectual and artistic genealogy of artists working within and against the constraints of the 80s, many of whom were influenced by the South African artist, teacher and activist Bill Ainslie and the Johannesburg Art Foundation (JAF), an institution that maintained inclusivity. Founded in 1982, JAF operated as an educational anomaly, rejecting prescribed curricula and external authority in favour of emancipatory and experimental pedagogy. Under Ainslie's direction, the Foundation fostered abstract expressionism, an art movement whose rejection of traditional representational art prioritised non-objective imagery to evoke emotion. The connections of the institution extended beyond the JAF itself, linking to the establishment of Federated Union of Black Artists (FUBA) and the Thupelo Workshops in Cape Town, institutions whose impact continues to shape contemporary South African art discourse.
The CEO, Mr George Roberts, said: "The Engen Collection represents a broad and vibrant range of South African artists and has been a treasured part of our company’s story for many years. As we look to the future, we believe it is time for these remarkable artworks to find new homes where they can continue to be appreciated, shared and celebrated. We believe that by releasing this collection, the artworks will find new life amongst a wider community, while inspiring new audiences by continuing to tell the story of South Africa’s creative spirit."
About this Item
signed; signed, dated 1985 and inscribed with the title on the reverse
Literature
Lloyd Pollak (2013) Simon Stone: Collected Works, exhibition catalogue, Stellenbosch: SMAC Art Gallery, illustrated in colour on page 57.
Notes
On 20 July 1985, then-President P W Botha declared a partial State of Emergency in response to widespread anti-apartheid protests and resistance. Under these provisions, the apartheid government imposed curfews, restricted media coverage and banned and/or prohibited meetings for certain organisations, amongst other measures. The State of Emergency intensified feelings of tension and distrust, further complicating race relations in the country.
Painted in the same year, this powerful work anchors itself within Neo-Expressionism - a visual language characterised by political scrutiny, personal and cultural mythology, ambiguity and social criticism. The subversive title, Looking to the Future, would seem to mirror the political situation at that time.
The present lot presents a narrative of seemingly dissonant imagery, conjuring a strangely symbolic image. At its centre is a monumental form - possibly a bottle or figure - surrounded, consumed and reflected by water. This central image is overlaid with depictions of structures and geometric forms.
While it is tempting to seek meaning in the pictorial symbolism, Stone incorporates images that resonate with him. These ambiguous narratives are as much personal explorations as reflections of the world around him.
Simon Stone was born in 1952 in Lady Grey in the Eastern Cape. He attended Michaelis School of Fine Art and graduated in 1976 with an Advanced Diploma in Fine Art. This was followed by a study tour of Italian Renaissance Art in Italy. In the 1980s Stone worked as a parttime lecturer in lithography at the University of Witwatersrand and as a part-time teacher at the Johannesburg Art Foundation. He currently lives and works in Cape Town.
Stone is a prolific painter who has built an impressive reputation over the years. He is best known for his symbolic collage paintings of landscapes and figures created in a variety of media including oil, gouache and encaustic. Stone began making his own artist sketchbooks in 1984. He paints in these books each day, creating preliminary motifs for his canvases.
He has been the recipient of a number of awards, including the Irma Stern Art Scholarship Award, University of Cape Town in 1976 and a Merit Award in the Volkskas Atelier in 1986. In 1993, he received the IGI Life Vita Art Now Lifetime Merit Award and in 1997 was the recipient of the New York City Award from the Ampersand Foundation. The documentary video Imagining Stone, featuring Stone's life and work was recently produced by ARTMeetsTV. Stone has exhibited extensively in both solo and group exhibitions, locally and internationally. He is represented by SMAC Gallery
Provenance
The Engen Collection.
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