Important South African and International Art, Drawings, Watercolours, Paintings, Prints and Sculpture

Last month, in a packed lecture held at the offices of fine art auctioneers Strauss & Co, Stephan Welz, the longest practising fine art expert and auctioneer in South Africa, held the room rapt as he concentrated his attention on the phenomenal, and largely unsung, contribution made to local arts and culture by Jewish philanthropists.

A month before he passed away on 25 December 2015, distinguished art expert and auctioneer Stephan Welz presided over yet another successful sale at Strauss & Co when, on 9 November, he knocked down painter Alexis Preller’s oil and gesso work The Creation of Adam I (1968) for R8.5 million in Johannesburg. The extraordinary sale result established a new South African record for this enigmatic painter.

Specialists from South Africa’s premier auction house, Strauss & Co, will be visiting Pretoria on Tuesday 2 February 2016 to provide obligation-free valuations to anyone who is considering selling an artwork, or would merely like to discover its value.

Strauss & Co’s upcoming auction on Monday 14 March at the Vineyard Hotel in Cape Town offers many exceptional works by major South African artists from JH Pierneef, Hugo Naudé, Walter Battiss, Gerard Sekoto, Gregoire Boonzaier and Erik Laubscher to Robert Hodgins, William Kentridge, Sue Williamson, Athi-Patra Ruga and Ian Grose. Amongst these, Birds and Boats (R700 000 – 900 000) by Maggie Laubser is one of the most charming paintings by this much-loved artist to appear at auction in recent years, according to Senior Art Specialist Emma Bedford.

Browse, bid or buy from the luxury of your own home on the latest Strauss & Co online auction from 15 – 22 February 2016

Look out for Strauss & Co’s eye-catching auction catalogue with its amusing cover, Bad Man in Great Threads (R700 000 – 900 000) by Robert Hodgins.

Modestly scaled and less architectonic than his oils, JH Pierneef’s casein paintings are widely regarded as amongst his most lyrical works. The artist is said to have produced upwards of 50 landscape studies using casein, a milk-based binding agent that Pierneef obtained from a Dusseldorf-based supplier. Characterised by their notational brushstrokes and impressionistic use of colour, Pierneef’s casein works are a benchmark of his intuition and assuredness as a painter.

Phenomenal results achieved at Strauss & Co’s Cape Town 16 March Auction – over R50 million sold. Here a list of the top ten lots by value with images of the top three.

Prices for South African and international art soared at Strauss & Co’s auction held Monday night in Cape Town. The sale achieved a total of R50 million with a value sell-through rate of over 84%, once again the highest in the current market.