Strauss & co - Review 2018

Also in August, Strauss & Co participated in the 26th annual Hilton Arts Festival, KwaZulu-Natal’s premier culture festival. Senior art specialist Alastair Meredith presented a lecture on Alexis Preller, Strauss & Co’s third-most valuable artist at auction (R145 000 000 from 128 lots sold since 2009). The company also hosted a fun and informative mock auction. In September, to coincide with the FNB Joburg Art Fair, the company presented the Strauss Art Hub in the Trumpet Building on the Keyes Art Mile, Johannesburg. Coordinated by respected curator Lucy McGarry, the Strauss Art Hub featured an exhibition of works consigned for Strauss & Co’s October and November 2018, and February 2019 sales, as well as extensive talks and a hospitality programme. Strauss & Co specialists were among the presenters. In October, Wilhelm van Rensburg curated the exhibition The Safest Place is the Knife’s Edge: Christo Coetzee (1929-2000) at the Standard Bank Gallery. A seasoned curator, whose exhibition credits include surveys of Stern, Judith Mason and JH Pierneef, Van Rensburg’s exhibition positioned Coetzee, a Wits Group member, as “already a world-class artist in the 1950s”. In December, Strauss & Co hosted a fundraising auction of 28 lots at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, in partnership with the museum. The works on offer were donated by a list of acclaimed contemporary artists such as Yinka Shonibare, Barthélémy Toguo and Nicholas Hlobo. The white-glove sale conducted by Bina Genovese raised R6 250 000. Proceeds from the sale will benefit Zeitz MOCAA’s art education fund. 34