Strauss & co - 2017 Review

Magical moderns from the post-war prove their worth In 1962, painter Robert Hodgins took up a journalistic position at editor Otto Krause’s News/ Check magazine. One of his first articles was an art market summary. “Art, traditionally, is a better business for a dead artist than a live one,” began Hodgins. He pointed out how Walter Battiss and Maurice van Essche both had to teach to get by. It wasn’t all bad news, though. “Neither ever sells for less than R2 000 at a one-man exhibition, and both can usually ask, and receive, sums averaging R180 - R200 for a picture.” A half century later, business remains brisk for these post-warmoderns. Prolific in output and catholic in style, Battiss was the eighth best performing artist in 2017, earning R5.5 million from 70 lots sold. Strauss & Co was proud to offer The Early Men (1938). Painted after his first trip abroad, this important painting, which captures Battiss’s fledgling attempt to negotiate the twin influences of European painterly modernism and local rock art, sold for R511 560. Art specialist Kirsty Colledge discusses the consignment of this important work on page 69. Walter Battiss The Early Men Sold R511 560, 16 October 2017 32