CAPE TOWN – Three important modernist portraits by Irma Stern, Gerard Sekoto and Maggie Laubser headline Strauss & Co’s live-virtual June Spotlight Sale of modern and contemporary art on Tuesday, 23 June 2026. Comprising 82 lots, the sale forms part of Strauss & Co’s expanding programme of specialist live auctions and presents a curated selection of paintings, works on paper and sculpture
Strauss & Co, South Africa’s preeminent auction house, successfully concluded its 2020 sales drive with an upbeat online-only auction of modern, post-war and contemporary art, decorative arts and fine wine. The auction netted a combined total of R7.4 million from 483 lots sold. The top-selling lot was an enigmatic quadriptych from 1995 by modernist painter Bettie Cilliers-Barnard, which sold for R234 500.
Strauss & Co. Senior art specialist and head curator Wilhelm van Rensburg highlights three Robert Hodgins works featuring in our May Live Virtual-Live Modern, Post-War and Contemporary Art Auction.
Strauss & Co’s forthcoming June sale of modern, post-war and contemporary art, decorative arts and wine includes an impressive line up of paintings from two important corporate collections, one offering a unique overview of Cape winemaking and its traditions, the other gathering an important grouping of South African women botanical artists.
Great pictures are the champagne of the auction market.
In CityLife Arts The Sphinx regards the viewer with a smirk of bemusement and defiance. It has none of the apathy and inscrutability we’ve come to associate with these mythological creatures. On the contrary, ceramic artist Hylton Nel’s Sphinx (estimate 12 000 – R16 000) is more ‘69 Summer of Love-meets-Mattel than ancient Greek mythology. This sculpture
The ceramic sculptures by Hylton Nel and his mentee, Nico Masemola, that appear on the Strauss & Co ‘Perfectly Imperfect’ Auction, attest to each artist/potter’s individual genius, and the way they are both able to achieve phenomenal results when working in what was traditionally considered a ‘lesser’ medium in the hierarchy of Western fine art
A highlight of Cape Town Auction Week (18-21 September 2022), is The Oliver Powell and Timely Investments Trust Collection.
We are pleased to announce that Katesi Jacqueline Kalange is the 2026 winner of the Cassirer Welz Award. She has been awarded a 3-month artist’s residency at Bag Factory Artists’ Studios, which will culminate in a solo exhibition. Strauss & Co, in association with Bag Factory Artists’ Studios, announced the winner of the prestigious Cassirer
