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 and dated 1996
Notes
Lots 7, 82 and 91 introduce a shift in Louis Jansen van Vuuren's style and subject matter beginning in the early 1990s. As Marilyn Martin observes, "There were views from an interior onto the city, intimate - sometimes claustrophobic - interiors, the merging of figure with interior objects, architectural elements, vases and flowers."¹
The interior is a dominant focal point. The compositions are framed as views from a room, looking out through a window bordered by a cast-iron Parisian balustrade. Inside, a table is adorned with cultural objects from Mali and the island city of Djenné, including clay and wooden masks, gold earrings and decorative bibelots. These are intermingled with French and other European elements such as vases of flowers and bowls of fruit. A dramatic Kente cloth from Ghana, serving as a curtain, elegantly drapes and frames each scene.
This recurring curtain motif, combined with the window view, subtly invites the viewer to consider what lies beyond the canvas, blending interior and exterior worlds. Jansen van Vuuren's expressive, loose and sketchy pastel technique enhances this interplay, intertwining culture, history and memory. His fascination with the Cape, the African continent and the broader global sphere resonates throughout.
Born in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, Louis Jansen van Vuuren is a descendant of Dutch and French immigrants whose innate drive to paint and interpret the world around him through colour and emotion emerged early in life. His first solo exhibition at the age of 17 in his hometown marked the beginning of a successful artistic career, both critically and commercially. He pursued formal studies in art and design at Stellenbosch University, earning numerous prizes, awards and scholarships. Over the years, Jansen van Vuuren has exhibited widely in South Africa and internationally, with his work held in esteemed collections including the South African National Gallery, Rand Merchant Bank, Investec, Sasol, Anglo Vaal, the Constitutional Art Collection and the Bright Foundation. In addition to his achievements in the visual arts, he is also an accomplished writer and poet, with published works such as Almost French, A Story of a House, Festive France, the internationally acclaimed There's a Vegan on My Verandah, and Tempermes. He currently lives and works in France.
Thanks to Louis Jansen van Vuuren for assistance in the cataloguing of this lot.
1. The Gallery at Grande Provence (no date) Louis Jansen van Vuuren, exhibition catalogue, Franschhoek: The Gallery at Grande Provence, page 15.
Provenance
The Engen Collection.
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