Record-breaking R106m in sales at red-letter auction
Irma Stern’s stature reconfirmed
A packed salesroom punctuated by rapturous applause acknowledged the fierce rivalry among collectors for top paintings, unseen in decades, at Strauss & Co’s red-letter autumn sale.
The sale culminated in a record-breaking tally of R106m in sales at a value sell-through rate of 93%. This performance is unrivalled in the marketplace.
Irma Stern cemented her status as the most sought-after SA artist at auction when three paintings from her celebrated Zanzibar period (1939/1945) sold for a combined R52m.
Adding to the buoyant mood was the sale of Alexis Preller’s seminal cabinet painting Collected Images (Orchestration of
Themes), at a new record for the artist, for just more than R10m.
Frank Kilbourn, Strauss & Co chairman, said: “This is the first art auction in SA to achieve over R100m in sales. The sellthrough rate of 93% is also unprecedented. It is a historic moment for the company and a wonderful way to celebrate our tenth year of business.”
Kilbourn added: “This outstanding result is a major vote of confidence for Strauss & Co and the SA art market in general. We are especially grateful to our clients, both buyers and sellers, for entrusting their works with us.”
The top-selling lot at the sale was an unrecorded Stern portrait of an Omani nobleman from the court of the sultanate of Zanzibar. Painted during Stern’s second visit to Zanzibar in 1945 and acquired directly from the artist by the late collector Sol Munitz, Stern’s painting Arab sold to a phone bidder for R20.484m.
The Munitz Collection consigned 15 lots to the sale, including Stern’s The Mauve Sari from 1946, which sold for R14.794m, and Gerard Sekoto’s Saturday
Afternoon, a bucolic street scene from his Eastwood period, which sold for R3.073m.
Paintings consigned from the Shill Collection also achieved outstanding prices. They included the world-record Preller work, as well as Stern’s 1939 portrait of a young woman wearing a yellow headscarf,
Meditation, Zanzibar, which sold for R17.070m, attracting the attention of a first-time Stern buyer. Also from the Shill Collection, Gwelo Goodman’s Interior Looking Out, Stellenrust sold for R216,220 and a small bronze of a bull by sculptor Sydney Kumalo achieved R421,060.
The sale included two important collections of decorative arts, notably a fine selection of Chinese and Japanese ceramics and works of art from the Dr JR and Mary Strong Collection. International bidders vied by phone for the Chinese pieces.
A celadon and beige jade two-handled vase with fiveclawed dragon motifs from the late Qing dynasty sold for R227,600. A robin’s egg blueglazed vase trounced the presale estimate, achieving R136,560, while a pale celadon jade brush washer fetched R96,730.
There was also considerable interest in the Strong Collection’s carved pieces. A trio of Chinese snuff bottles, including a pink tourmaline example depicting a qilin (mythological hoofed creature), sold for R54,624. A 19th-century wood netsuke depicting a seated tiger achieved R34,140, the top price for a netsuke.
The top lot from the Dr Johan Bolt Collection of Cape furniture was a rare Southern Cape neoclassical jonkmanskas from the early 19th century, which sold for R512,100. A southwestern Cape neoclassical settee exhibited in Den Haag in 2002 sold for R227,600.
Bina Genovese, joint MD, said: “This sale further underscores Strauss & Co’s ability to handle top works from important single-owner collections. Our business is fundamentally about relationships. Consigning major collections for auction takes years, often decades of dedicated commitment to a single client.”
Vanessa Phillips, joint MD, first met Dr Strong in 1978. Her association with Mavis and Louis Shill dates to the late 1990s. These longstanding relationships with top-tier collectors are a hallmark of Strauss & Co’s business model stressing provenance and quality.
Added Genovese: “Many of the top lots had not traded hands in decades. We were greatly encouraged by the public response to our preview exhibition, which drew unprecedented numbers of visitors and bidders to the Vineyard Hotel to view these important pieces.
Presentation along with the Strauss modus operandi contributed to the success of this sale.”
Visiting British auctioneer and art specialist Dendy Easton handled the premier evening session at Strauss & Co’s pacesetting sale, which noticeably bucked a recent trend of sluggish bidding. Buyer appetite for quality works was immediately evident when Easton opened the session with two impressive oils by Gwelo Goodman. Both works achieved solid prices: a historic picture of the Old Town
House in Cape Town sold for R546,240, while a landscape titled Full of Flushed Heat Tulbagh – sold for R512,100. JH Pierneef is Strauss & Co’s second-highest grossing artist and once again demonstrated his broad appeal. There was a palpable buzz in the salesroom when his 11x13.5cm casein,
Golden Gate, came up for sale — the work eventually sold for R227,600. Extensive Landscape, an evening-coloured oil on board painted in 1926, sold for R398,300. An Extensive Mountain Landscape, formerly owned by the Scottish family Linney, achieved R375,540.
Postwar artists Peter Clarke, Erik Laubscher and Cecil Skotnes also drew strong bids. Painted in 1960, Clarke’s architectural landscape, Farm House, sold for R284,500. Icon, a tall carved, incised and painted wood panel by Skotnes from 1965, sold for R512,100. Laubscher ’ s mid-period Still Life with Jug, Bowl and Fruit from the 1960s confirmed his status at auction and sold for R910,400.