Strauss & Co hosts its flagship Johannesburg auctions on 17 and 18 November 2026. The auction comprises three sales of modern and contemporary art, including two live-virtual auctions at Strauss & Co’s Houghton showroom, bringing together important works from major private and corporate collections.
Salon, 1987, pastel on paper
53 by 92,5cm excluding frame; 68 by 107 by 4cm including frame
Highlights at Strauss & Co’s flagship auctions
Art appreciators can expect to see important works from the collections of novelist Wilbur Smith, Sanlam, Valterra Platinum and the late Advocate Ruth Kuper SC feature in Strauss & Co’s November flagship sales.
Irma Stern’s Still Life with Strelitzias, a Songe Mask and a Songe Nkisi Figure, from the Wilbur Smith Collection, leads the Evening Sale with an estimate of R5.5 to R7.5 million.
The Evening Sale presents a strong selection of South African modernism, including important works by Alexis Preller, J.H. Pierneef, Maggie Laubser, Wolf Kibel and Erik Laubscher, alongside a significant contemporary offering.
The Cotton Tree Collection sale brings together modern and contemporary art from across Africa, including works by Léonce Raphaël Agbodjélou, Soly Cissé, Serge Alain Nitegeka and Dominique Zinkpè.
54,5 by 49,5cm excluding frame; 74 by 69 by 5cm including frame
Right: Alexis Preller
Mapogga Temple, 1952, oil on canvas
52 by 40,5cm excluding frame; 78,5 by 68,5 by 6cm including frame
The Evening Sale
The premier Evening Sale is the first of Strass & Co’s two live-virtual auctions this November. The sale features works by leading South African modernists Wolf Kibel, Erik Laubscher, Maggie Laubser, J.H. Pierneef, Alexis Preller and Irma Stern from the Wilbur Smith Collection, Valterra Platinum Collection, Sanlam Art Collection and the collection of Advocate Ruth Kuper SC.
Works up for auction
The cover lot for the Evening Sale is Irma Stern’s Still Life with Strelitzias, a Songe Mask and a Songe Nkisi Figure, an important work from 1946 (estimate R5.5 – R7.5 million / US$330 271 – 450 370). The painting has been consigned from the collection of the renowned novelist Wilbur Smith and his wife.
Emeritus Professor of Art History at the University of Cape Town and a leading global authority on Stern, Michael Godby, discusses Stern’s painting on Saturday, 14 November, before the piece goes up for auction the following Tuesday.
In 2022, Professor Godby presented an exhibition of the artist’s nudes at the Sanlam Art Gallery near Cape Town, which included her 1947 composition Nude (estimate R2 – R3 million / US$120 099 – 180 148). This painting forms part of a group of nine works from the prestigious Sanlam Art Collection up for sale.
Comprising mainly nudes, the selection includes Wolf Kibel’s Male Nude (Self-Portrait) (estimate R150 000 – R200 000 / US$9 007 – 12 010), two nudes each by Maggie Laubser and Alexis Preller, and Penny Siopis’s 1987 interior scene Salon (estimate R250 000 – R350 000 / US$15 012 – 21 017).
Landscape is a strong theme in the Valterra Platinum Collection. Highlights include Erik Laubscher’s Summer Keurfontein, painted in 1995–96 (estimate R400 000 – R600 000 / US$24 020 – 36 030), Judith Mason’s large oil on board Paper Darts (estimate R150 000 – R200 000 / US$9 007 – 12 010) and Keith Alexander’s 1983 composition Kolmanskop (estimate R400 000 – R600 000 / US$24 020 – 36 030).
Advocate Ruth Kuper SC (1934–2026), one of South Africa’s first women advocates, was a discerning collector of modernist artists.
Gerard Sekoto’s post-impressionist tour de force Yard in Sophiatown (estimate R2 – R3 million / US$119 933 – 179 899) leads a selection that includes Irma Stern’s Still Life with Pink Cloth (estimate R1.2 – R1.5 million / US$72 059 – 90 074) and four watercolour and pencil studies linked to J.H. Pierneef’s career-defining Johannesburg Station panels.
Offered as a single lot, the studies depict Louis Trichardt, Mont-aux-Sources, Premier Mine and Waterval Boven (estimate R400 000 – R600 000 / US$24 020 – 36 030).
Pierneef is represented by nine works in the Evening Sale, including the late bushveld scene On the Pongola River, Shingwedzi, painted in 1955 (estimate R1.5 – R2 million / US$90 074 – 120 099). Alexis Preller is represented by six works, among them Mapogga Temple, a mythological painting from 1952 (estimate R3 – R5 million / US$180 148 – 300 247).
Dating from one of the artist’s most important periods, the work follows his transformative paintings of the late 1940s, represented in the sale by Sandals on the Beach (1948; estimate R1.5 – R2 million / US$90 074 – 120 099).
The contemporary consignment spans a period of significant change in South African art, with paintings, sculpture and works on paper dating from the 1980s to the present.
Highlights include John Meyer’s large-scale celestial landscape Odysseus (estimate R3.5 – R4.5 million / US$210 173 – 270 222), an artist’s proof of William Kentridge’s important 1989 etching Casspirs Full of Love (estimate R400 000 – R600 000 / US$24 020 – 36 030) and Gerhard Marx’s bronze Scion (Child), made in 2013 (estimate R350 000 – R500 000 / US$21 017 – 30 025).
Kentridge is also represented by four bronzes, three of which derive from his Three Russian Figures series portraying a man with globe, flag and megaphone (estimate each R300 000 – 500 000 / US$18 015 – 30 025).
Other sculptural highlights include works by Conrad Botes, Sydney Kumalo, Fanie Eloff and Anton van Wouw, as well as a maquette by Edoardo Villa for Column of African Life Centre (estimate R350 000 – 450 000 / US$21 017 – 27 022).
Cost: Bidding requires online registration. You can bid in-person or online.
When: Tuesday, 17 November 2026 at 7pm. Guests may also join the discussion led by Professor Godby on Saturday, 14 November at 11am
Where: Strauss & Co Fine Art Auctioneers, 89 Central St, Houghton Estate, Johannesburg
Yard in Sophiatown, indistinctly signed, oil on canvasboard
35 by 44cm excluding frame
The Cotton Tree Collection
Following the Evening Sale is an auction of Selected Pan-African Works from the Cotton Tree Collection; a pan-African selection of modern and contemporary art that ranges across artistic practices, national contexts and generations.
The catalogue features Léonce Raphaël Agbodjélou, Willie Bester, Soly Cissé, Andile Dyalvane, Aboubakar Fofana, Wycliffe Mundopa, Serge Alain Nitegeka and Dominique Zinkpè.
Works up for auction
The Cotton Tree Collection extends the programme’s geographic reach, bringing together artists from across the continent whose work has attracted sustained institutional attention. Malian artist and textile designer Aboubakar Fofana, who participated in documenta 14 in 2017, is represented by the dyed-fabric diptych Erosion (estimate R30 000 – R40 000 / US$1 801 – 2 402).
Serge Alain Nitegeka, whose work appeared in the South African Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015, is represented by two painted panels titled Fragile Cargo (estimate R150 000 – R200 000 / US$9 007 – 12 010).
The collection also includes a strong group of photographic portraits by Beninese photographer Léonce Raphaël Agbodjélou and French photographer Jean-Claude Moschetti, adding further breadth to a selection that ranges across artistic practices, national contexts and generations.
Cost: Bidding requires online registration. You can bid in-person or online.
When: Wednesday, 18 November 2026 at 2pm
Where: Strauss & Co Fine Art Auctioneers, 89 Central St, Houghton Estate, Johannesburg
Need to know before you go
Detailed catalogue notes for selected works are available online, with historical photographs accompanying some entries. Works from all sales are on view at Strauss & Co’s gallery at 89 Central Street, Houghton. A walkabout of the preview exhibition will also take place on Sunday, 15 November 2026.
Website: straussart.co.za
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 011 728 8246
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Facebook: @straussandco
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