Strauss & co - 2015 Review

achieved R2 955 680. The result confirmed the upward momentum of this slow-burning revival. It also set a new world record for a portrait by the artist. Another notable highlight from 2015 is the sale of Erik Laubscher’s Women Arranging Flowers (1951), which fetched R2 046 240. Painted shortly before the artist returned to Cape Town from Paris, this domestic scene is exemplary of Laubscher’s newfound optimism and confidence as a painter following a protracted period of wandering. Walter Battiss, an early champion of Laubscher who praised his ability to “paint big canvases with satisfying assurance,”also kept up his upward momentum at market. In October, Strauss & Co offered a rare Battiss sculptural piece. Produced in the late-1960s, My Typewriter is composed of an ordinary desktop typewriter covered in thick layers of oil paint. The work anticipates the later mischief of Battiss as “King Ferd the Third” of Fook Island, and is also an important antecedent to the humourist sculpture of Ed Young. Strauss & Co currently holds the auction record for Battiss with African Figures (1950). This vivid oil was sold for R2 562 200 in 2012. A year after the successful sale of the Harry Lits Collection by Strauss & Co in 2014, works associated with art dealer Egon Guenther’s feted Amadlozi Group continue to attract bidders – and set records. Cecily Sash’s Target Composition I (1974), a semi-abstract painting by this founding member of the Amadlozi, achieved R511 560, a record for the artist. A 1982 wood sculpture depicting a traditional healer, by Lucas Sithole, a star pupil of Cecil Skotnes and Sydney Kumalo, achieved R545 664, above its pre-sale high estimate. Vladimir Tretchikoff, whose work charts a strain of graphic-inspired figuration in post-war painting, continued to perform well. Zulu Maiden (1956) sailed past its high estimate in March to achieve R3 183 040. A similar work from a year later, Portrait of a Zulu Maiden (1957), fetched R2 046 240, confirming the resilience of the recent upswing in value of key pictures from the painter’s archive. CONTEMPORARY “You’re halfway to heaven,” quipped Stephen Welz to a bidder before knocking down Ed Young’s ebullient Arch (2010) at the Strauss & Co auction in Cape Town, in March. On the same evening, Welz’s gavel registered another world record when Robert Hodgins’s portrait of Captain Alfred Dreyfus entitled J’accuse (1995) sold for R2 500 960. Later in the year a military-themed painting by Hodgins, Clubmen of America: Academy Cadets (2002), doubled its pre-sale estimate to sell for R1 591 520. Hodgins, a quintessential modern who died in 2010, was also a distinguished printmaker. He famously collaborated with Deborah Bell and William Kentridge on a range of works, including films and print portfolios. Like their older collaborator, Bell and Kentridge have also posted solid results at auction in 2015. At a June sale, Sentinel III (2004), an attenuated bronze sculpture by Bell, sold for R886 704. It established a record for the artist. A similarly totemic figure entitled Sentinel VII (2004) fetched R852 600. Kentridge also featured prominently on 2015 Strauss & Co auctions. Head (1991), a large gouache, charcoal and collage study of a male head originally exhibited in Johannesburg in 1991, sold for R1 477 840. Much has changed in the 25 years since Kentridge exhibited Head at the Newtown Galleries. The market for contemporary art is now a rich ecosystem with an abundance of galleries and fairs vying for patronage. Artists associated with dealer Linda Givon’s pace-setting Goodman Gallery in the 1990s performed exceptionally well at auction this year. A suite of sculpted wood figures produced by Norman Catherine in 1997 sold for R545664. It is a newworld record for the artist. Penny Siopis, who along with Catherine, Hodgins and Kentridge was represented by the Goodman Gallery, also faired remarkably well. In March, during the run of her career survey at Iziko South African National Gallery, an abstracted 2009 figure painting entitled‘Pine’, sold for R659 344. Siopis is arguably South Africa’s most important living painter, an accolade that is increasingly reflected in her performance at auction. Hunting and Nature Scene (c. 1986), a three-part pastel drawing in the style of Siopis’s celebrated “banquet” painting series from the late 1980s, set a new record for the artist when it sold for R1 136 800. In 2015, Strauss & Co set reliable benchmark prices for younger painters Zander Blom and Georgina Gratrix, both born in 1982. In October, Maneater (2011), a joyously macabre oil portrait by Gratrix, topped its high estimate and sold for R96 628. An untitled Blom abstract from 2012 came within its estimate, fetching R40 925. While the prices for lens-based media still lag, Athi-Patra Ruga’s hand-woven tapestries emerged as a sought-after collectable. Ruga’s undated tapestry The Brute doubled its pre-sale estimate, selling for R181 888, a career record for the artist. Of note, Ruga was the 2015 Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner in the category performance art. The contemporary market is about changing formats, diversifying tastes and internationalising trade. In a year that saw sculpture triumph, again and again, the rare local display and successful sale of a work by Belgian sculptor Berlinde de Bruyckere stood out as a notable highlight. Part of a small offering of important international work, De Bruyckere’s Schmerzensmann III (2006), a towering epoxy, wax and iron work depicting a flayed human skin hung on a lamppost, sold for R3 410 400. The result was consistent with a series of headline results from 2015 in which figurative sculpture shone. The human form, it was confirmed, still matters. 17