Strauss & co - 2017 Mid-year Review

Alexis Preller’s upward trajectory, which was decisivelysignalledatStrauss&Co’sNovember 2016 sale of rarely seen works, continues. Described as a study in“sumptuous exoticism” by artist, Professor Karel Nel, Preller’s Still Life with Thangka and Pomegranates (1951) sold for an impressive R7 502 880 (high estimate R5 million). Professor Nel is currently working on an exhibition of Preller’s work for a new private museum in Cape Town. Scheduled for 2018, the exhibition will further stimulate Alexis Preller Still Life with Thangka and Pomegranates Sold R7 502 880 interest in Preller, an enigmatic modern who developed a highly personal painterly idiom. Other noteworthy results achieved by earlier moderns include Hugo Naudé’s The Mountain behind Groote Schuur Estate , a fine example of Cape impressionism, which brought in R1 023 120, and Jean Welz’s consummate example of painterly mastery and restraint, Still Life with a Bowl of Figs (1954), which sold for R886 704 (high estimate R500 000). 10