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
the second signed and dated 85
Notes
The tapestry was hand-woven by Marguerite Stephens and includes a collage study commissioned by Engen. The present lot hung in the marble-clad foyer of the office.
"Verster's colours are wide-ranging, from vast strokes of gentle pinks, mauves and blues, to shorter, sharper turgid oranges and quicker, darker shades. Woven by Marguerite Stephens in her studio at Halfway House in the Transvaal, all the colours were dyed by hand in the workshop of her mother, Coral Stephens."1
Andrew Verster studied design at the Camberwell School of Art in London (1955-59) and furthered his studies at Reading University (1959-60). Upon returning to South Africa, he lectured at the University of Durban-Westville and the Natal Technikon until 1976, when he gave up teaching to become a full-time painter.
He designed sets and costumes for numerous stage productions and completed a wide range of public and private commissions. He undertook major commissions in various media, such as a series of hand-woven Mohair tapestries for Engen, etched glass doors for the Brenthurst Library in Johannesburg, murals for the BMW building in Midrand and an etched glass skylight for the University of Cape Town's education building. A noted writer of short stories, articles, and radio plays, he exhibited widely across South Africa, Europe and the United Kingdom. He held more than 50 solo exhibitions and is represented in major public and private collections, including the South African National Gallery, Durban Art Gallery, and the Universities of Witwatersrand. He
received two Art-SA-Today awards (1967 and 1979) and was honoured with two retrospective exhibitions at the Durban Art Gallery in 1997 and 2019.
1. R J Angel (no date) Mobil Court Art Collection: A Collection of South African Visual Art, Mobil Oil Southern Africa, unpaginated.
Provenance
The Engen Collection.
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