Groundbreaking exhibition
remembered by Strauss & Co in its forthcoming sale
Strauss & Co’s forthcoming November sale in Johannesburg includes a session titled An Unsung History that is dedicated to highlighting the achievements of unheralded modernist artists working through the country's most tumultuous periods.
T
he themed session includes early pioneers like Ernest Mancoba, John Koenakeefe Mohl, Gerard Sekoto and Moses Tladi. The special session is intended to commemorate a groundbreaking
event held three decades ago at Johannesburg’s premier public art institution.
Sydney Kumalo Horse and Rider
On 23 November 1988, curator Steven Sack presented his landmark exhibition, The Neglected Tradition:
Tladi was the first black artist to be exhibited at
Towards a New History of South African Art (1930-1988),
the South African National Gallery. His work Mountain
at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Informed by an earlier
Landscape (estimate R80 000 – 120 000) portrays Mont-
1986 exhibition of works by, among others, painters
aux-Sources in his typically enraptured manner. Mohl,
Ephraim Ngatane and George Pemba, at the Alliance
who appeared on Sack’s Neglected Tradition, is represented
Française, Pretoria, Sack’s 1988 exhibition was widely
by a pastoral scene painted in Serowe, Botswana (estimate
hailed for casting a spotlight on a neglected canon of
R40 000 – 60 000).
black artists. Along with Sekoto, Pemba and Ngatane are now well-
The sale also includes a strong selection of sculptures by, among others, Jackson Hlungwani, Noria Mabasa,
known figures at auction. In March 2009, at its debut sale
Phillip Rikhotso, Cyprian Shilakoe, Winston Saoli and
in Johannesburg, Strauss & Co sold Pemba’s portrait of a
Lucas Sithole, as well as Zimbabweans Tapfuma Gutsa and
dapper musician, The Guitar Player (1977), for R401 040.
Brother Andrew.
Standout offerings from Strauss & Co’s selection of
Dr Phuthuma Seoka’s carved and painted wood
overlooked and unsung artists from the past century
figures, Page vs. Coetzee (estimate R40 000 – 60 000),
includes two oils by Ngatane and Sekoto’s Women and Baby
depicts two prominent heavyweight boxers from the
in the Street (estimate R800 000 – 1.2 million), which was
1980s and reads like an allegory of the politically
painted shortly after his return to Pretoria in 1947.
troubled period it was created in.
60 / Creative Feel / November 2018
