Strauss & co - Review 2019

Strauss & Co’s activities as a company far exceed just hosting sales events. Collecting is about passion and community. Throughout 2019, Strauss & Co hosted talks and exhibitions that collectively promoted and underscored the value of connoisseurship. Highlights included: • Satire and Irony , an exhibition of paintings by Robert Hodgins, Stanley Pinker and Alexander Podlashuc, exhibited during Art Month at Welgemeend, Cape Town in August. Works from the Kilbourn Collection were shown alongside select pieces from the collections of Marion and Jonathan Bloch, Erin and Leo Podlashuc, Caro Wiese and other private collectors. • Peter Haden: Almost Forgotten , a presentation of historical bronzes by second-generation Amadlozi sculptor Peter Haden, organised by collector Gavin Watkins. Premiered at Strauss & Co’s new Johannesburg exhibition space in Houghton, this fascinating historical exhibition later travelled to Cape Town. • AMeeting of Minds , an exhibition of paintings by Louis Khehla Maqhubela and Douglas Portway, presented at the seventh annual RMB Turbine Art Fair, Johannesburg. Curated by Strauss & Co senior art specialist Wilhelm van Rensburg, the exhibition featured works from various private and corporate collections. More than sales: A year of exchange, sharing and collegiality • Neighbours: Some African Modernists , a survey of twentieth- centurymodernist art fromBotswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe, presented at Strauss & Co’s gallery in Houghton, Johannesburg. The exhibition coincided with Art Week Joburg, a vibrant annual festival of art in Johannesburg. Strauss & Co additionally hosted a series of informative talks at its Houghton offices, as well as at the Latitudes Art Fair at Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton. • Strauss & Co at Morkel House, a weeklong exhibition of important South African artworks by Irma Stern and Alexis Preller from the Shill and Munitz collections, shown in one of South Africa’s oldest buildings in Stellenbosch. The exhibition included a complementary education programme, with public lectures by Wilhelm van Rensburg and Alastair Meredith. • Renewed Insights: The Art of Irma Stern (1894–1966) , an article byWilhelm van Rensburg, was published in CABO, the journal of the Historical Society of Cape Town. • Contemporary African Art , an article byWilhelm van Rensburg, was published in De Kat 2019, published by African Sky Media. Louis Maqhubela Untitled Presented in 1979 by the Schlesinger Foundation to Wits Art Museum 42