Strauss & co - Review 2024

38 39 CHAIRPERSON’S REPORT 2024 CHAIRPERSON’S REPORT 2024 Taking Strauss & Co to the world In October, at Strauss & Co’s International Sale, we sold Marc Chagall’s drawing La Fenêtre à Paris for R8m / $455 203 and a 1967 Pablo Picasso drawing for R7.3m / $416 185. The prices realised for Chagall and Picasso were very satisfactory in comparison to works sold internationally, and also compares favourably with the R4m achieved for a work by Pierre-Auguste Renoir in 2023. Offering artworks of this calibre and price point presents a possible growth opportunity for Strauss & Co, but demands committed marketing to reach new buyers. Interest- ingly around 50% of the buyers were South African. In March, in a bid to introduce the Strauss & Co brand and its offering to international buyers – and in conjunction with the centenary of the Surrealist movement and the multiple exhi- bitions across the globe – we presented the exhibition Alexis Preller: Surreal Discovery at Cromwell Place in London. The exhi- bition was Strauss & Co’s first selling exhibition in London, as well as a first for Preller, who never presented a solo exhibition of his work in the city where he studied art. Organised by Dr Alastair Meredith, Head of Department, Strauss & Co, and a specialist in early twentieth-century South African art, Alexis Preller: Surreal Discovery presented 11 works available for sale by private treaty together with an equal num- ber of loan works from collections in Johannesburg, London, Pretoria and Turin. We secured important sales as well as good media coverage. In October, to coincide with Frieze Week, Strauss & Co presented another pop-up selling exhibition in London, at Pan Maison near Trafalgar Square. Looking Towards Freedom: Womxn Artists from Africa juxtaposed modernist pioneers like Irma Stern, Ruth Everard-Haden, Maggie Laubser and Gladys Mgudlandlu, with later 20th century innovators Esther Mahl- angu, Judith Mason and Penny Siopis. It also included work by important contemporary artists Georgina Gratrix, Kate Gott- gens, Turiya Magadlela, Zanele Muholi, Amanda Mushate, Mary Sibande and Helen Teede. Many of these award-winning artists appeared in high-profile international exhibitions in 2024. Laubser, Mahlangu, Mgud- landlu and Stern all appeared in curator Adriano Pedrosa’s main exhibition at the 60th Venice Biennale. Others, like Mahlangu, Muholi and Siopis, have been the subject of career surveys at museums in Cape Town, London and Athens in 2024. Both our London exhibitions provided important lessons on how to optimise our presence in larger, more competitive mar- kets, as well as how to manage effort versus cost. As part of our international activities, we also underwrote the production of two informative guides aimed at collectors and art aficionados visiting London and Venice. As part of our repeat sponsorship of the 2024 edition of the African Art in Venice Forum, which coincided with the opening of the 60th Venice Biennale, Strauss & Co produced a guide listing all the art exhibitions featuring African and diasporic artists in Venice. The guide was well received and prompted the production of a similar directory for Frieze Week in London. The London guide presented collectors with a handy – and strategically overlooked – insight into the extraordinary diversity of African and Afro-descendent artists showing in London. London- based wealth advisory firm Stonehage Fleming sponsored the guide. Pablo Picasso  Tête (Head) (recto and verso) Sold R7 200 000 / $416 185 22 october , the international sale exhibition : oude leeskamer stellenbosch , woordfees , october 2024 styling by gert gertzen