Strauss & co - Review 2018

In all, Stern contributed four works worth R17 410 200 to the top 20 lots by value. Preller posted a fractionally better cumulative result, achieving R17 752 800 from his four lots in the top 20 highest earners. Head (Adapting Itself to the Unendurable) , a small oil painted in 1949 during the artist’s celebrated Seychelles period, was the top Preller lot selling for R7 055 600. Notwithstanding the unanticipated oversupply of Pierneef paintings in the marketplace, this masterful landscape painter continued to perform strongly at auction. Four works by Pierneef featured in the top 20 lots, earning a combined R15 945 600. Strauss & Co achieved a new world record for a Pierneef casein when Lowveld Eastern Transvaal (1928), a mesmerising kaleidoscope of blues and greens, sold for R5 917 600. Maggie Laubser earned a combined R4 552 000 from her three works in the top 20 lots by value. This much-loved Cape painter’s two top-performing lots, Harvesters in Wheatfield and Leentjie , were both from a single-owner collection. Maggie Laubser, Harvesters in Wheatfield Sold R2 276 000, 12 November 2018 16