Strauss & co - 2016 Review

an illustrious Cape Town manor home and estate founded on the slopes of Table Valley in 1693. The exhibition showcased a selection of works drawn from Welgemeend’s historical collection of earlier 20th-centurymasterpieces assembledby Afrikaans poet and scholar Izak Wilhelmus “Boerneef” van der Merwe, and works from businessman and Strauss & Co chairman Frank Kilbourn and his wife Lizelle’s collection of modern and contemporary South African art. Proceeds from the fundraiser dinner benefitted Welgemeend. Public lectures and talks are an integral part of Strauss & Co’s outreach activities. Artist Karel Nel, a leading expert on Alexis Preller and co- author with Esmé Berman of the respected 2009 monograph on the artist, presented a captivating public lecture on Preller to a packed house at Strauss & Co’s Johannesburg office in October. Also in Johannesburg, Strauss & Co hosted a talk by respected printmaker Mark Attwood, of the Artists’ Press in White River in September. The 2016 sale of Irma Stern’s Portrait of Freda Feldman in Basotho Hat, a striking 1943 portrait of one the artist’s Johannesburg patrons, occasioned much excitement. In the lead up to the work’s sale in Johannesburg, where it fetched R5 115 600, Strauss & Co hosted a special preview at the artist’s former Cape Town home, The Firs, now the UCT Irma Stern Museum, in May. Stern is known for her love of fashionable hats. Strauss & Co invited visitors to the preview to don striking hats. The response by attendees was generous, and in keeping with the convivial mood of Strauss & Co events throughout 2016. BASA’s Young Business Professionals, Private Viewing and Lecture, 4 May Stern Dinner – The Freda Feldman Portrait, 10 May 91