Strauss & co - Review 2022

Every year, linguists at a variety of English-language dictionaries announce their word of the year. Among those offered in 2022, Collins English Dictionary proposed “permacrisis”, a term describing “an extended period of instability and insecurity”. The word fittingly summarises 2022. The year under review presented many challenges. A new, highly transmissible variant of the Covid-19 virus identified in late 2021 upended prospects of a swift return to pre-pandemic normal in 2022. Inflation intensified, with food and energy the main drivers of a global upsurge in the cost of living. Capital markets slumped in 2022. The conflict in Ukraine and electricity woes in South Africa further complicated trade. Despite a flurry of confounding macroeconomic factors, Strauss & Co thrived. It achieved R354 million ($20,8 million) from 6381 lots sold at 55 auction sessions held throughout 2022. The overall lot sell-through rate was a very respectable 71%. The geographic location of buyers grew from 29 countries in 2018 to 48 countries in 2022. Nine of the 20 most valuable individual lots sold in 2022 went to international buyers, including the top earner, Irma Stern’s masterful 1938 portrait, Dakar Woman (1938), which sold for R10 469 600 ($612 130). Irma Stern once again affirmed her blue-chip status at auction. She led the rankings of most valuable individual lots sold in 2022, with a total of eight works in the list of top 20 lots sold. Of note, her 1940 portrait of an urbanised sitter, AfricanWoman , sold to an Asian buyer for R5 600 000 ($327 417). Only J. H. Pierneef rivalled Stern, this enthusiastically collected modernist painter represented by six landscapes in the top 20. Reflecting his revered global status,WilliamKentridge surpassed traditional high earners like Pierneef, Alexis Preller and Anton van Wouw. His 2012 ink drawing Peonies with Book sold for R4 324 400 ($252 836) to a European collector. Kentridge’s 1988 drawing The Highveld Style Masked Ball sold to an English buyer for R3 641 600 ($212 915). Alexis Preller’s Gold Kouros (1969), an oil and gold-leaf panel depicting a male torso, also achieved R3 641 600 ($212 915). In all, Strauss & Co sold 52 works over R1 million ($58 881). This excellent performance reflected Strauss & Co’s resilience and drive to succeed. Drawing on lessons from the pandemic crisis of 2020-21, a period of digital transformation and format innovation, Strauss & Co devoted 2022 to honing its sales platforms and internal processes to better serve its global collector base. Curation emerged as a major area of focus throughout the diversified sales platforms. Strauss & Co successfully hosted a number of themed auctions of fine art, wine and decorative arts throughout 2022. It also presented numerous single-owner collections, further entrenching its position as market leader in the disposal of high-value estates and collections. Parlaying earlier successes in 2021, Strauss & Co hosted four single-artist auctions devoted to important modern and contemporary artists Robert Hodgins, William Kentridge, J. H. Pierneef and Irma Stern. In a sale for the ages, all the lots in the bustling Cape Town auction devoted to Stern found buyers. Strauss & Co hosted a total of nine “white glove” sales, auction parlance denoting when 100% of the lots on offer sell. The wine department especially had a sparkling year. A run of eight faultless sales aside, it also launched five Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) linked to vertical collections from five iconic South African wine estates. The NFT drop, a first for African winemakers, was a great success: all five NFT lots sold. Conviviality was a noticeable feature of the year. Notwith- standing the early wobble presented by the omicron variant of Covid-19, there was decisive return to in-person bidding. Auction rooms buzzed in the second half of 2022. The widespread desire to be out and about provided numerous opportunities for education and hospitality. Strauss & Co prospers despite global instability 14