Stanley Pinker lived between London and Nice from 1952 until 1964 when he returned to Cape Town. ‘The Dam at Eenzaamheid’, Longkloof would have been produced relatively soon after his return. Interestingly it bears a strong resemblance to the Romantic landscapes favoured by early twentieth-century British landscape painters such as Graham Sutherland, John Piper and Paul Nash with their predilection for autumnal tones, organic forms, scarred earth and occasional architectural ruins, employing Surrealist overtones or Gothic drama to evoke post-war experiences.

Edoardo Villa is one of South Africa’s most enigmatic sculptors who, in both in style and personality, indelibly stamped his African Vision onto his works and into our consciousness over a period of more than 50 years. The thirteen Villas in the Strauss & Co. upcoming sale are remarkable in that they represent a range of stylistic diversity and evolution not usually seen except in a specifically curated exhibition.

Spring Auction in Johannesburg, Monday 7 September 2009, Important British, Continental and South African Paintings, Drawings, Prints and Sculpture, Country Club, Johannesburg, Woodmead

A highly important mid-18th century Cape coromandel buffet with silver mounts by Johannes Casparus Lotter is to be offered for sale by Strauss & Co. in their inaugural Cape Town auction on 8 October 2009.

Johannesburg: Strauss & Co’s auction held this week at the Johannesburg Country Club in Woodmead confirms certain strengths in the art market and that South Africa is the place to buy South African art.

Strauss & Co’s Cape Town inaugural auction of Highly Important Paintings, Furniture, Silver and Ceramics including the Leslie Milner Collection held on 8 October 2009 at the prestigious Vineyard Hotel in Newlands, realised a remarkable R39 million, bringing the turnover for the auction house in its first year of operation to more than R100 million and thereby placing Strauss & Co. firmly at the helm of the South African art market. The Leslie Milner Collection of South African Paintings alone totalled R4.5 million. With an 89.63% sold rate, several new world records were also achieved for works by Wolf Kibel, Stanley Pinker, Johannes Meintjes, Fanie Eloff, Gerard de Leeuw, May Hillhouse and Jean Welz, amongst others.

Edith Dodo 1923 – 2009 Edith Dodo, née Azgour, was born in Cairo where her father was a perfumier. They relocated to Paris where Edith went to school and was introduced to a world of art, design and fashion that was to leave a lasting impression on her. When Edith was fifteen the family immigrated to South Africa and settled in Johannesburg where she completed her schooling before going on to the Johannesburg Art School.

The impact of the South African war, or more specifically, the second Anglo-Boer war (1899 – 1902) was deeply felt amongst South Africans when Van Wouw produced this bronze in 1907.

Racework – in the event of an earthquake, one of Jane Alexander’s most appealing and affecting sculptures, was made in response to Alexander’s visit to Tokyo, where she was invited to show the Bom Boys on the exhibition, Africa Africa at the Tobu Museum of Art in late 1998. Identical to each other, the Racework figures make reference to preconceived ideas about difference, exoticism, and stereotypes based on visual markers, and with that, assumptions, discrimination and prejudice based on appearance.

A magnificent Irma Stern painting entitled Still Life with Dahlias and Fruit is one of the many impressive works coming up for auction at Strauss & Co’s Johannesburg sale on 24 May 2010.