Wanneer Idees Gestalte Kry | From Concept to Object
1- 31 August 2026
The centrepiece of the 2026 edition of Welgemeend Art Month (1–31 August 2026), Cape Town’s much-loved winter arts festival now in its thirteenth year, is From Concept to Object / Wanneer Idees Gestalte Kry. Drawing on works from the Kilbourn Collection and other private collections, the group exhibition explores how artists transform ideas into tangible form. It also includes a special focus on Cecil Skotnes, a pivotal figure in the history of modern South African art.
Coinciding with the centenary of Skotnes’s birth in 1926, the exhibition has particular significance for Strauss & Co Chairperson Frank Kilbourn. In 1981, while studying law at Rand Afrikaans University (now the University of Johannesburg), Kilbourn met Skotnes, together with fellow artists Walter Battiss and Edoardo Villa, at an exhibition on campus. The encounter sparked a lifelong passion for collecting South African art.
“Years later, when Frank turned forty, a group of friends who knew about his beginnings as a collector presented him with a painting by Cecil Skotnes,” says Lizelle Kilbourn, who met her future husband while they were both studying law at RAU. “Skotnes occupies a special place in our lives. Like him, we both studied and began our professional careers in Johannesburg and later lived in Oranjezicht after moving to Cape Town. It is a privilege to celebrate this remarkable artist at Welgemeend, just a short walk from his former home.”
Reflecting on the exhibition and the broader programme of events during Welgemeend Art Month, Frank Kilbourn says: “Every winter, the Kilbourn family, together with the Friends of Welgemeend and Strauss & Co, brings together its resources to present an intimate cultural event for Cape Town and its residents. Our aim is to inspire and educate while raising funds for the continued preservation of Welgemeend, the Boerneef Art Collection it houses and its historic gardens.”
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The Friends of Welgemeend was established in 2007 as a voluntary association. An extract from the Friends’ Constitution summarises its main purpose:
- To support and participate in the advancement, promotion and preservation of the historic homestead of Welgemeend (birthplace of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr in 1845) and that of the artworks, books and documents known as the Boerneef Collection (donated by the author I.W. van der Merwe, whose nom-de-plume this was) and other artworks, books and documents housed there and in the adjacent buildings of the Hoërskool Jan van Riebeeck.
- To foster a wider public interest, firstly in both the Homestead and the Art Collection, and secondly a wider appreciation both of the visual arts and of early Cape architecture and other related fields of interest.
ALSO ON IN CAPE TOWN
Strauss & Co presents works from our exhibition Dreaming Impossible Things on view at the Alliance Française du Cap as part of the 2026 Heat Winter Arts Festival in Cape Town. This year’s theme, Ctrl + Z, calls us to reflect on the notion of undoing. It reminds us that while we can instantly undo our actions in the digital realm through the handy shortcut, in reality, repairing the damage of systems like colonialism, racism, patriarchy and capitalism is a far more complex endeavour.
