THE SOUTH AFRICAN
June 2010 For the full online edition go to: www.arttimes.co.za SUBSCRIBE: 1 year’s subscription to your door: R 360 - Incl. Business Art. and ArtLife E-mail: subs@arttimes.co.za
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Artist’s feature Supplement:
Rhodes Art School
Includes: SA Business Art and SA Artlife Titles
Irma’s R 22 M flowers
Strauss’s Johannesburg Auction reaps R40 Million, with new world record for Stern still life, confirming SA Art Auction Market confidence is on the way up
Irma Stern: Gladioli and Fruit (R 7 575 M) , Dahlias and Fruit ( R 4 233 M), Magnolias and Pumpkins (R 6 127 M) and Proteas ( R 3 899 M) By Michael Coulson Irmamania reigned again at Strauss & Co’s Jo’burg auction this week. While a not very attractive genre painting of hers failed to sell, four still lifes grossed R 22m, more than half the R 40.1m the sale raked in for SA art. Pride of place went to a new world record of R7.575m (including buyer’s premium) for the cover lot (estimate: R4m-R5m), followed by R6.127m for the inside back cover lot (est R2m-R3m), R4.233m for the back cover (R4m-R6m) and R3.899m for the inside front cover (est R3.5m-R5m). A minor gouache landscape of hers went for R123 000 (est R100 000-R150 000)
The sale also brought a world record price for Cecil Skotnes, R2.005m for a painted wood panel (est R600 000-R800 000). His work was in demand, others going for R668 000 (est R600 000R800 000) and R501 000 (est R500 000-R700 000). Other good results included R2.896m for Alexis Preller’s oil The Flower King (est R800 000R1.2m) and R1.448m for a Maud Sumner Scottish landscape (est R500 000-R800 000). The top-priced Pierneef landscape, Barberton, fetched R780 000 (est R700 000-R1m). Without these highlights, the result would have been rather humdrum. Only 103 of the 168 lots (two of the
Robert Brooks Baviaans landscape. Barker Collection. See the Rhodes University Art School Supplement inside previously reported 170 were withdrawn) in the first session sold, 61.3%, for a total of just under R2.6m, 73% of the low estimate. The average was just under R25 000.
Eight of the 22 highest-estimate works – those with low estimates of R300 000 and above – failed to sell, including all three Gerald Sekotos, one of which had been estimated at R1m-R1.2m.
A similar 61.0% of the second session sold, or 64 of 105, but the stars pushed the gross to R37.57m, 119.9% of the low estimate of R31.33m, for an average of R587 000. Overall, 167 of 273 lots sold, 61,2%, a gross of R40.1m being 115.2% of the low estimate of R34.85m. Overall average price was a few hundred Rand over R240 000.
Of the most represented artists, Giuseppe Cattaneo and Edoardo Villa each sold eight of 12, W H Coetzer all 10, Sumner five of 10, Errol Boyley six of nine, Piet van Heerden four of nine, Tinus de Jongh three of seven, Reg Turvey just two of seven, and Stern and Skotnes each five of six.
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Meanwhile, while houses like Strauss and Swelco publish results the day after the event, a week after Graham Britz’s much-hyped sale no prices are yet available.
it can incorporate them in the auction result, but one has to ask just how long auction results can be delayed without jeopardising their credibility.
The web site even claims the auction is still in progress. When I inquired earlier this week, I was assured prices would be posted imminently, when certain unspecified “things” had been “finalised.” Just what these could be is a matter of speculation. Scuttlebutt in the market place is that the firm is trying to move unsold lots by private treaty so that
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Maud Sumner Paysage Ecossais