Strauss & co - Review 2019

Strauss & Co also established new world records for artists Jake Aikman, Ezrom Legae, Judith Mason, Walter Meyer and Neil Rodger during the course of its four live sales. Legae’s African Goat is a fine example of the sculptural style that emerged in Johannesburg in the 1950s and was cast at the Vignali Foundry in Pretoria, the oldest bronze foundry in the country, in 1990. Limited to an edition of seven, one of which is in the collection of Iziko South African National Gallery, Legae’s artist’s proof sold for R1.7 million in November. Modernist painting and sculpture from the period 1900 to 1968, the last year of South Africa’s participation in the Venice Biennale until 2011, remains the mainstay of Strauss & Co’s four daylong live sales. Painters active in the period between 1968 and 1990 continue to show strong upward growth. Collector interest in George Pemba was especially pronounced in November (Johannesburg). A downcast study of a lone sitter painted in 1975, Portrait of an Elderly Man Holding a Hat , drew considerable interest and finally sold for R477 960. Pemba’s upbeat oil from 1992, The Dance , also bettered estimates and sold for R318 640. Ezrom Legae African Goat Sold R1 707 000 World record for the artist 24