Strauss & co - Review 2021

Four of the ten most expensive lots sold in 2021 were by the hand of Preller. In October an eruptive cheer greeted the sale of Preller’s dazzling 1965 composition Boy with a Crocodile which was knocked down for R10.4 million by joint MD and auctioneer, Bina Genovese. A month later Strauss & Co sold Adam and Eve , a symbolically loaded and joyously intricate painting from 1955, for R8.6 million. The strong results followed on the momentum established in May, when two important Preller oils depicting traditional Mapogga (Southern Ndebele) women found buyers. Both painted in 1951, G rand Mapogga II , an iconic interpretation of a Mapogga matriarch, sold for R5.5 million and Mapogga Terrace , a similarly styled work dominated by an architectural backdrop, sold for R4.3 million. Alexis Preller Adam and Eve Sold R8 648 800 22