Strauss & co - 13 November 2017, Johannesburg

16 Danie de Jager, who pursued sculpture his whole life, struggled at the outset of his career. He doggedly entered every possible competition until he finally won his first major commission. This was the Hertzog Monument in Bloemfontein which kept him at work for the greater part of the 1960s. Later his reputation was such that that he could rely on patrons approaching him directly, and he had to employ a number of assistants to cope with the volume of work. Yet his sculpture is not widely represented in South African museums, pointing, if nothing else, at the divide between ‘public’ and ‘high art’ taste. De Jager explored the great freedom often given to him by his clients to conceptualize a new commission, but he was also quick to adapt his style to their demands, with naturalistic images of historical figures and political dignitaries, wildlife studies for Sun City, and abstract pieces at such venues as Bela Bela, Polokwane and O R Tambo International Airport. His most famous sculpture is arguably Shawu , the life-size elephant at the entrance to the Lost City Palace Hotel at Sun City. De Jager stated that Shawu was cast in Italy because only there could something of that size be undertaken in the ceramic shell technique, which would also have facilitated the detailed replication of the texture of the elephant’s hide. But it is notable that the extensive, eagerly collected editions of this small-scale work was cast locally by Mike Edwards at the IMI Sculpture Studio at Lanseria. Oscar the Seal , at the Table Bay Hotel in Cape Town, became another favourite of the public, especially as Nelson Mandela attended the inauguration. Later in life De Jager gained widespread international status with such prominent commissions as the Flying Horses at the Atlantis Royal Hotel in the Bahamas, the Water at last group of camels at the Royal Mirage Hotel, Jumeirah, Dubai, and the Arabian Horses for the Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Dubai. His oeuvre spans sculpting a war memorial at Delville Wood in France as well as a series of impala heads adorning the façade of the Impala Building on 5th Avenue, New York. His clients included such luminaries as Bill and Hillary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, His Highness Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed al Maktoum, Cliff Richard, Natalie Cole, Sting, Michael Jackson, and the actor, Robert de Niro. Lots 171 to 178 Estate Late Danie de Jager (1936 – 2003) Photograph of the late Danie de Jager’s studio.