Strauss & co - 17 February 2018, Cape Town

Robert Hodgins is part of an influential generation of artist-teachers associated with the art school at the University of the Witwatersrand. Strauss & Co’s debut contemporary art sale included pieces by former Wits faculty like Karel Nel,Walter Oltmann and Penny Siopis. Nel posted the third biggest individual result when Schism I (1993), a pastel and sprayed pigment drawing of foliage and studio objects that sold for R1 023 120, a new world record for the artist. Oltmann’s brass wire depiction of a locust with its diaphanous wings spread open sold for R193 256, well above the high estimate. Reflecting its status as a classic example of Siopis’s breakthrough “Cake paintings” series, Cake (1982) sold for R852 600. Strauss &Co’s long-establishedcommitment tomarketing and selling key pieces of contemporary art has seen the company achieve record high prices at auction for both Hodgins and Siopis. In 2016, Lace Cloth (1983), an important early still life by Siopis, fetched R1 136 800 at a Strauss & Co sale. A year earlier Hodgins’s magnificent history painting J’accuse (1995) sold for R2 500 960 also at a Strauss & Co sale. Robert Hodgins, Drunk in the Docks Sold R1 250 480 Penny Siopis, Cake Sold R852 600 Karel Nel, Schism I Sold R1 023 120