October sales offer highly collectable work from specialised corners of the art world Eclectic selection defined by signs, symbols and texts
Strauss & Co’s October sales are bound together by signs and symbols both painted and written, with a book collection, a collection of zines and journals and a collection of art focused on signs and symbols.
The October ART timed online sale is divided into offers from a customary broad and varied range of work at accessible prices in different mediums, including pieces by widely different modern and contemporary artists. Watch out for a selection of Southern African landscapes, a genre that rarely goes out of fashion, alongside more recent work by respected artists Ephraim Ngatane, John KoenakeefeMohl and Andrew Verster. Contemporary impasto oil painting by Lwando Dlamini is on offer, as well as some hard-to-find works by Norman Catherine related to his collaborative conceptual project with Walter Battiss, Fook Island.
A separate Timed Online sale section focuses on books from the Peter Jaff Library. Jaff was a respected ceramicist in his own right, and his considerable and considered library offers a chance to acquire rare volumes in the field, particularly a selection of works on contemporary British studio ceramics.
A third sale session, titled ‘Markings, Signs and Symbols’, offers another eclectic selection brought together by its visual representation of sign systems and symbols, both strange and familiar. Ranging over painting, including works by stalwarts Esther Mahlangu and Joachim Schönfeldt, there is also ceramic work by master ceramicist Hylton Nel and the internationally renowned Ardmore Studios, as well as an evocative series from artist Susan Woolf focused on gesture and symbol, including works from her well-known depictions of taxi passenger hand signals. These sit well alongside Schönfeldt’s colourful portraits of minibus taxis, also on offer.
A dedicated session Experiments in Colour and Form offers a selection of paintings and drawings by the underappreciated and highly collectable Sidney Goldblatt (b. Johannesburg, 1919-1979). Featuring works in oil, watercolour, ink and mixed media, there is an intriguing range of subject matter in the collection, reflective of Goldblatt’s refusal to be restricted to a singular style. The collection comes from the late artist’s widow, Wendy Goldblatt, who has worked to preserve his artistic legacy.
A series of paintings made in response to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, on offer in the sale, are what led Sidney Goldblatt down the path of working in an abstract manner. These artworks have a distinctively lyrical quality, as they were made while Goldblatt listened to radio reports on the conflict.
The final session in the sale offers an intriguing opportunity for art collectors of accessible and affordable but crucial archival work which contextualises and expands the art world itself – that of art magazines and art/literary crossover publications from the last 60-plus years. A dedicated single owner collection of Zinesand journals from the 1960s to now are on offer as bundled editions or single issues. This benchmark collection ranges over immaculate bundled editions of crucial historical journals like The Classic, edited by legends Nat Nakasa and Barney Simon in the late 1960s, across the anti-apartheid art and literature journal The Bloody Horse, edited by Patrick Cullinan in the early 1980s, and up to the notorious and highly-regarded Afrikaans counterculture series Bitterkomix, by current contemporary artists Conrad Botes and Anton Kannemeyer.
Sales start closing from Monday 12 October from 2pm until Wednesday 14 October 6pm.
Browse, register and bid – www.straussart.co.za
