Strauss & Co’s flagship live sale showcases the international reach of South African contemporary art

7 Sep 2026

Strauss & Co’s flagship live-virtual Evening Sale in Cape Town on Tuesday, 15 September 2026 brings together key works by Brice, Kentridge and Siopis alongside contemporary painting, sculpture, photography and textiles by Willem Boshoff, Wim Botha, Candice Breitz, Robin Rhode, Athi-Patra Ruga, Georgina Gratrix and Kate Gottgens.

“Many of the artists in our Evening Sale have exhibited internationally, participated in major biennials, received prominent awards and developed significant museum and institutional careers,” says Elmarie van Straten, Head of Cape Town Art Department and Senior Art Specialist at Strauss & Co. “What is particularly exciting is the range of practices represented in the sale. These artists have very different approaches to image-making, material and subject matter, but collectively they demonstrate the sophistication, ambition and international reach of contemporary art from South Africa.”

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The work of South African-born, London-based painter Lisa Brice, whose practice challenges traditional representations of women in Western art history, is highly sought after by collectors. Her untitled 2005 portrait of a young girl (estimate R500 000 – 700 000 / US$31 245 – 43 744) derives from night-vision photographs taken by Brice during screenings at a film club in Trinidad run by artist-friends Peter Doig and Che Lovelace. The resulting painting is a haunting examination spectatorship and female representation.

Cape Town painter Penny Siopis’s diptych Swarm (estimate R500 000 – 700 000 / US$31 245 – 43 744), a large non-figurative work composed of ink and glue, was included in the artist’s career surveys Penny Siopis: Time and Again at the South African National Gallery in 2014 and Wits Art Museum in 2015. The work received the Helgaard Steyn Award in 2015, one of South Africa’s most substantial visual arts prizes. In 2024, Siopis was the subject of a major retrospective at the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens, Greece.

The sculpture selection is led by Willem Boshoff’s Blind Alphabet E (estimate R300 000 – 500 000 / US$18 747 – 31 245), ten wire-mesh cages set on plinths, each containing a carved wooden form corresponding to a difficult or obscure word from a dictionary compiled by the artist. The meaning of each form and its corresponding word can only be deciphered by a blind person using a description in Braille on the lid. In 2005, author Ivan Vladislavić described the series as a “complex, contradictory love affair” with the English language and called it Boshoff’s “masterpiece”.

Willem Boshoff, Blind Alphabet E; R300 000 – 500 000 (Lot 179)

Wim Botha, another prominent figure in the development of South African contemporary sculpture, is represented by Time Machine (estimate R600 000 – 800 000 / US$37 495 – 49 993), a partially painted wood sculpture integrating fluorescent tubes. Winner of the Helgaard Steyn Prize for sculpture in 2013, Botha has long explored the tension between solid and ephemeral materials, using fluorescent light and sculptural form to create works that occupy an uncertain space between the physical and the immaterial.

The photographic component of the sale extends the examination of performance and representation. Candice Breitz’s two photos  Extra #18 & Extra #35 (estimate R40 000 – 60 000 / $2 479 –3 718 for each) derive from a 2011 photo series created on the set of the popular South African soap opera Generations. Robin Rhode’s Principle of Hope (estimate R400 000 – 600 000 / $24 790 – 37 185), one of two photo sequences on offer, uses the body and staged action as vehicles for exploring inclusivity and connection.

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