Strauss & co - Review 2020

The story of South African art extends beyondpaintingand sculpture. Recognising this, Strauss & Co introduced New Collector, a session in its November sale featuring a medium-specific focus on contemporary South African ceramics. Strauss & Co senior art specialist Wilhelm van Rensburg spearheaded this initiative. The offerings included lots by established figures like Esias Bosch and Bonakele Ntshalintshali, as well as rare pieces by artists Deborah Bell, Robert Hodgins, William Kentridge and Hannatjie van der Wat. “The sale confirmed the reputation of pioneers like Noria Mabasa and Nesta Nala and contemporaries like Ruan Hoffmann and Ian Garrett, whose work skilfully reinterprets indigenous stoneware techniques,” said van Rensburg after the sale. The New Collector sale saw healthy prices paid for works by Hylton Nel, including R73 970 for his glazed earthenware piece Flower Cat . Two green-glazed hares by Nico Masemola, a former apprentice of Nel, sold to an institutional collection for R62 590. The positive reception of this sale was foretold by an earlier sale handled by Strauss & Co. In February, at a liquidation sale of the Monarch Hotel’s art collection in Johannesburg, a collection of 60 individually hand-painted glazed ceramic plates by Hoffmann was a complete sellout. The sale confirmed the reputation of pioneers like Noria Mabasa and Nesta Nala and contemporaries like Ruan Hoffmann and Ian Garrett, whose work skilfully reinterprets indigenous stoneware techniques. John Newdigate and Ian Garrett Birds Feeding Sold R182 080 World record for the artists New Collector: A Focus on Contemporary South African Ceramics 40