Since 1994, when South Africa’s isolation ended, artists such as Lisa Brice, William Kentridge and Penny Siopis built international practices. They have exhibited at leading museums and biennials, attracting a growing collector base and the South African contemporary art auction.
Strauss & Co’s flagship live-virtual Evening Sale in Cape Town on Tuesday, 15 September 2026 brings together key works by Brice, Kentridge and Siopis, alongside a South African contemporary art auction featuring painting, sculpture, photography and textiles by Willem Boshoff, Wim Botha, Candice Breitz, Robin Rhode, Athi-Patra Ruga, Georgina Gratrix and Kate Gottgens.
Many of the artists in our Evening Sale have exhibited internationally, participated in major biennials, received prominent awards and developed significant museum and institutional careers,” says Elmarie van Straten, Head of Cape Town Art Department and Senior Art Specialist at Strauss & Co. “What is particularly exciting is the range of practices represented in the sale. These artists have very different approaches to image-making, material and subject matter, but collectively they demonstrate the sophistication, ambition and international reach of contemporary art from South Africa.”
South African-born, London-based painter Lisa Brice’s work challenges traditional representations of women in Western art history. Her untitled 2005 portrait of a young girl derives from night-vision photographs Brice took at screenings in Trinidad. The images were made during screenings at a film club run by artist friends Peter Doig and Che Lovelace. The resulting painting is a haunting examination of spectatorship and female representation. The South African contemporary art auction market recognises Brice’s contribution.
Cape Town painter Penny Siopis’s diptych Swarm (estimate R500 000 – 700 000 / US$31 245 – 43 744), a large non-figurative work composed of ink and glue, was included in the artist’s career surveys Penny Siopis: Time and Again at the South African National Gallery in 2014 and Wits Art Museum in 2015. The work received the Helgaard Steyn Award in 2015, one of South Africa’s most substantial visual arts prizes. In 2024, Siopis was the subject of a major retrospective at the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens, Greece.
Other vanguard contemporary painters in the sale include Georgina Gratrix and Kate Gottgens. Gratrix’s Jewel Face (estimate R300 000 – 500 000 / $18 592 – 30 987) exemplifies her highly individual approach to portraiture, characterised by an energetic handling of paint, saturated colour and deliberately unstable perspectives. Gottgens’s The Big Rip (estimate R160 000 – 200 000 / $9 916 – 12 395) similarly demonstrates her distinctive approach to spatial construction and colour. Gottgens is the subject of a survey exhibition at Norval Foundation in Cape Town.
The sculpture selection is led by Willem Boshoff’s Blind Alphabet E (estimate R300 000 – 500 000 / US$18 747 – 31 245), ten wire-mesh cages set on plinths, each containing a carved wooden form corresponding to a difficult or obscure word from a dictionary compiled by the artist. The meaning of each form and its corresponding word can only be deciphered by a blind person using a description in Braille on the lid. In 2005, author Ivan Vladislavić described the series as a
“complex, contradictory love affair” with the English language and called it Boshoff’s “masterpiece”.
William Kentridge’s Female on Podium, Shadow Quartet (2) (estimate R500 000 – 700 000 / US$31 245 – 43 744) reflects the artist’s sustained investigation of the relationship between drawing and sculpture. Kentridge’s sculptural output has increasingly drawn attention since Norval Foundation profiled this aspect of his work in 2019, culminating in The Pull of Gravity (2025–26) at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, the artist’s first museum presentation outside of South Africa to focus specifically on his sculpture work.
Wim Botha, another prominent figure in the development of South African contemporary sculpture, is represented by Time Machine (estimate R600 000 – 800 000 / US$37 495 – 49 993), a partially painted wood sculpture integrating fluorescent tubes. Winner of the Helgaard Steyn Prize for sculpture in 2013, Botha has long explored the tension between solid and ephemeral materials, using fluorescent light and sculptural form to create works that occupy an uncertain space between the physical and the immaterial.
The photographic component of the sale extends the examination of performance and representation. Candice Breitz’s two photos Extra #18 & Extra #35 (estimate R40 000 – 60 000 / $2 479 –3 718 for each) derive from a 2011 photo series created on the set of the popular South African soap opera Generations. Robin Rhode’s Principle of Hope (estimate R400 000 – 600 000 / $24 790 – 37 185), one of two photo sequences on offer, uses the body and staged action as vehicles for exploring inclusivity and connection.
Athi-Patra Ruga’s tapestry The Lands of Azania (2014 – 2094) (estimate R150 000 – 200 000 / $9 296 – 12 395) presents a speculative map of the artist’s fictional Azania. In 2025, Ruga presented a major solo exhibition at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, a New York-based platform dedicated to queer perspectives. He also staged a site-specific intervention in the Brücke Museum in Berlin as part of the exhibition Irma Stern: A Modern Artist between Berlin and Cape Town.
The contemporary works form part of Strauss & Co’s flagship live-virtual Evening Sale in Cape Town on Tuesday, 15 September 2026. A preview exhibition of highlights will be presented at Strauss & Co’s gallery at Brickfield Canvas in Woodstock, Cape Town. Our lot entries feature extensive notes on individual works and their histories, offering collectors further context on the artists and works included. The sale is also supported by an online highlights catalogue which also includes highlights from the Mid-Century Modern Furniture, Design and Jewellery Sale taking place live on 16 September.
As is always the case at Strauss & Co, the weekend prior to the sale presents a series of walkabouts, educational talks and children workshops:
Saturday 12 September
10:30am – 11:30am 12 September: Art and Design Walkabout with Strauss & Co Specialists
12.00pm: Object Lessons: The Still Lifes of Irma Stern A Lecture by Prof Michael Godby.
2:30pm- 3:30pm Family Day – Strauss & Co invites children aged 5 years old and up to a Saturday afternoon of art-making with Art Education Specialist Jo Voysey and Kirstie Pietersen.
Sunday 13 September
10:30: The Art of Transforming Spaces with Marc-Anthony Hewson (LIM) and Jill van Dugteren, Strauss & Co Design Specialist
3pm: Art and Design Walkabout with Strauss & Co Specialists
