Business Art News
STRAUSS & CO
November sale explores South African art’s love affair with Paris www.straussart.co.za
S
trauss & Co is pleased to announce details of the theme for its forthcoming Johannesburg sale, due to be held at its Houghton offices on Monday, 11 November. The summer sale will focus collectors’ attention on the strong influence Paris has exerted on South African art throughout the twentieth century.
“Paris was a beacon for countless South African artists,” says Susie Goodman, executive director at Strauss & Co. “The first South African artist to study in Paris was Robert Gwelo Goodman, in 1895. The list of local artists who followed in his footsteps is as remarkable as it is long. The top three lots in our upcoming sale are by Alexis Preller, William Kentridge, and Penny Siopis, highly acclaimed artists who each spent time in Paris early in their careers.” The top lot is Preller’s Icon Barbare (Adam), an oil painting quoting his powerful 1969 intaglio Adam (sold by Strauss & Co in 2016 for R6.8 million). Shown on the artist’s 1972 Pretoria Art Museum retrospective, Icon Barbare (estimate R8.5 – 10 million) depicts the biblical first man with Prelleresque flourishes. “The Christ-like beard and hair are ambiguously transformed with green and leaf-like tendrils thus assuming a pagan quality,” notes artist and Preller expert Karel Nel. “The transmuted presence feels more like an icon of Pan, the Greek god of nature, of fertility, the mountains and wilds.” The November sale includes a 1954 sketch for the upper part of the central panel of the large three-panel All Africa mural, installed at the former Receiver of Revenue (now SARS) offices, Johannesburg (estimate R400 000 – 600 000). Assuredly loose in style, this oil on canvas reveals Preller’s admiration for French Fauvist painter Raoul Dufy, a lifelong friend of painter Othon Friesz. Penny Siopis, Act I Scene II, oil on canvas, 120 x 120cm, R 2 800 000 - 3 500 000
88
