BUSINESS ART SOUTH AFRICAN

BUSINESS ART

BUSINESS ART

Stephan Welz remains cool headed during the sale of Irma Stern’s Two Arabs from her Zanzibar period for a world record breaking R 20 m in 2011

SW: “I didn’t let my schooling get in the way of my education”. Stephan Welz twinkles, acknowledging the home of his parents as a fertile hub of culture; an environment where the arts were an integral part of daily life, steering him towards his own future in the art business domain.

Many leading artists of the 40’s and 50’s, named in Esmé Berman’s book Art and Artists in South Africa were my parents’ friends – of the New Group of painters, I would say 90% of them were. They are the very people whose work I sell today. I had the good fortune to grow up in an environment where one appreciated the blood, sweat and tears that goes into a work of art. Artists such as Irma Stern, Lippy Lipschitz, Gregoire Boonzaier, Enslin du Plessis and the photographer Jansje Wissema were regular visitors to our house. As a young boy I spent school holidays with Cecil Higgs in Sea Point. Not all of his contemporaries were friends nor were they all admired by my father, Jean Welz, but today I sell their work with as much enthusi-asm as I sell his. I also spent a fair amount of time working and assisting my mother in her art and antique gallery..”

JA: “Welz is not a common South African name…” SW: “ Yes, it’s Austrian. My father, Jean and Danish mother, Inger, met and married in Paris where they were living and working - he as an architect and she as a journalist. With war clouds looming over Europe in the 1930’s, they decided to emigrate. My father was fortunate to obtain a position as architect in Johannesburg and they left Europe in 1937. Early in 1939 he was diagnosed with TB, At the time there was no cure for the disease He was advised bythe doctors to move to a drier climate and as luck would have it, they were offered a free farm house in the Tradouw Pass between Barrydale and Swellendam. Here my father began painting and drawing - trying to earn a living. In 1941 he met Hugo Naude in Worcester and there was an immedi-ate rapport between them. Naude died very shortly after their meeting. He had willed his house to become an art school and my father was invited to become the first head. We moved to Worcester where I was born in Hugo Naude’s house.”

In the early 1970s I obtained a B.Com. through Unisa where I had a position as Administrator in the Arts Department assisting Professor Walter Battiss who was Head of the Department of History of Art and Fine Arts. Sotheby’s had just opened in South Africa headed by the venerable Reinhold Cassirer. Their first auction was a great success. The company brought a whole new standard of auctioneering to South Africa in terms of expertise - from aca-demic knowledge to sound marketing skills. This was the first time in South Africa, for example, that items sold at an auction came with a guarantee of authenticity. The presentation of the catalogue was a whole new experience too, moving away from the Roneo sheet norm to full colour productions. Soon I was invited to join Sotheby’s and in 1974 was appointed to the Board of Sotheby Parke Bernett SA as executive director of the South African company.

I accumulated tremendously valuable experience working in South Africa, London and Amsterdam with some of the world’s top experts in their respec-tive fields. Sotheby’s is a highly respected auction house and association with its name and reputation gave me a platform to live out much of what is dear to me. I loved my work and did well, becoming managing director of Sotheby’s S.A. in 1981. In the same year I was also appointed to the Board of Sotheby’s International and in 1983 became a director of Sotheby’s London.

An interview with The Stephan Welz Jenny Altschuler chats with Stephan Welz, Managing Director of Strauss & Co. about his life’s passion Art and his vision for 2012

Many leading artists of the 40’s and 50’s in Esmé Berman’s book Art and Artists in South Africa were my parents’ friends – of the New Group of painters I would say 90% of them. They are the very people whose work I sell today. I had the good fortune to grow up in an environment where one appreciated the blood, sweat and tears that goes into a work of art. Artists such as Irma Stern, Lippy Lipschitz, Gregoire Boonzaier, Enslin du Plessis and the photographer Jansje Wissema were regular visitors to our house. Top The Welz’s with Irma Stern and her friend Dudley

40 SA ART TIMES. February 2012

BUSINESS ART | EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH STEPHAN WELZ OF STRAUSS & CO.

In 1986 Sotheby’s became American-owned and after the passing of the Anti-Apartheid Act American companies with shareholdingsin South Africa were forced to pull out. I and a few colleagues were given the opportunity to buy the company. Under it’s new name, Stephan Welz & Co, we continued the auction-house operation as Sotheby’s only representative in the Republic. We were extremely successful and over the years forged some excellent new ground in South African auctioneering.

In the mid 2000s I had a serious health scare and as a result sold my stake in Stephan Welz & Co in January 2007. To my surprise I recovered” his laugh has a nervous edge, “and in late 2008 was invited to join a newly founded company, Strauss and Co. with new partners, Dr. Conrad Strauss, (retired chairman of Standard Bank): Elisabeth Bradley, (who had previously headed up Toyota S.A), as well as Francis Antonie and Mary-Jane Darroll. Also, col-leagues of long standing, Vanessa Philips, Ann Palmer and Bina Genovesejoined the new company. Within three years Strauss & Co has become the world’s leading auctioneer of South African Art with a turnover of over R170 million in 2011and I believe we will continue to grow.

My job is my passion, my hobby, my interest and my relaxation.

JA: “So how come you have never invested in a collection of your own?”

SW: “You can’t be a collector and a dealer – there is always the danger of a

conflict of interests. Having said that, I once had a small collection of Cape silver and this served as the inspiration for my book on Cape silver which was published soon after I started working for Sotheby’s, in 1976. It is still the standard reference work on Cape silver. Subsequently I also wrote two books on art at auction in South Africa. Over time I inherited quite a number of beautiful pieces but I seldom buy things. I take in a work for sale and it lives with me for four or five months before we sell it. Sometimes it’s hard to let it go, but I have to and I’m satisfied

JA: How do you feel about 2012 and the future?

The art market worldwide is experiencing a measure of uncertainty and South Africa is no exception. However, there is a strong support base of serious collectors still seeking the best and willing to pay for it. It is also a time where collectors seek new names and talent. After forty years of ups and downs in the South African Art Market I have learnt that conditions such as we are experiencing at present in fact open up new opportunities for artists, collectors and the commercial art world. The secret is to capitalise on this and I know that with the strength of expertise in Strauss & Co, and the support of my colleagues we can look forward to 2012 with all its challenges and new experiences with great confidence.

Photographs (left) supplied by Mr Stephan Welz, and all colour photographs by Jenny Altschuler

Stephan Welz packs in a full days work at Strauss & Co’s offices in both Cape Town and Johannesburg. View their website at www.straussart.co.za

SA ART TIMES. February 2012 41

By Michael Coulson

With each of the three major auction houses holding sales in the next couple of months, there’s a good deal of apprehension whether the softer trend ap-parent in the market in the last quarter of 2011 will be sustained, extended, or – the least likely outcome – reversed. Bonhams’ Giles Peppiatt, in SA on a final hunt for work for his firm’s March 21 auction in London, reckons that it was more a case of buyers sitting on their hands at a particularly difficult stage of the international financial crisis than an intrinsic collapse in demand, but concedes that this year’s pipe-opener will be less ambitious than last year.He doubts that any individual lots will be valued at more than £400 000-£600 000, and while the final figure is yet to be determined expects the low estimate to be no more than around half last year’s £10m – which, of course, was inflated by the Irma Stern Arab Priest, estimated at £1.5m-£2m, that actually fetched a record £3m. It may be significant, too, that the house has not scheduled the customary curtain-raising sale of lesser work at its Knights-bridge premises on the eve of the main sale, though Peppiatt says it’s not yet been decided whether to hold a separate Masterpieces session.He adds that, going back to potential vendors who decided to withhold work last year and are now re-

considering, news that this year’s estimates could be 10%-15% lower was not what they wanted to hear.Strauss & Co’s Stephan Welz wouldn’t be drawn on a figure, but confirms that his firm’s estimates are also “slightly more conservative” and that “we’d be bluffing ourselves if we think the market is insatia-ble”, repeating a point that’s been made before, that the previously strong market brought a lot of stock out of suburban living rooms. Owners tend to have an exaggerated view of value – or, as Peppiatt more gently puts it, are not as in touch with the realities of the market as buyers.Strauss & Co, while leapfrogging Stephan Welz & Co for the first local sale of the year, is also lowering its sights, the low estimate for its sale on Monday February 6, as usual at Cape Town’s Vineyard hotel, being only about R23.3m, only 40% of last year’s R58.7m. And there are only three seven-digit estimates: R8m-R12m for a Stern portrait of an Arab woman (the inside front cover), R2.8m-R3.5m for a Pierneef landscape, and R2.5m-R3.5m for a Stern portrait of two seated Arabs.The top baker’s dozen of estimates (with a low esti-mate of R300 000 and upwards) also includes R700 000-R900 000 for Stanley Pinker’s Bathers (the inside back cover), R600 000-R900 000 for a William Kentridge head, R350 000-R400 000 for Wolf Kibel’s Three Women (the frontispiece), a clutch of lots on

R300 000-R400 000 – a Hugo Naude landscape, another Pierneef, two Maggie Laubscher landscapes and two Stanley Pinkers, one of them the front cover – and another Kentridge head on R300 000-R400 000.The frontispiece to the evening session is a Naude landscape of Jaffa, estimated at R250 000-R350 000.Most represented artist in the 204 lots is Walter Battiss, with 15 lots, mostly low-priced, followed by Naude and Cecil Higgs (nine each), Robert Hodgins (seven), Kentridge, Tinus de Jongh and Gregoire Boonzaaier (six each) and Terence McCaw, Pierneef, Pinker, Alexander Rose-Innes and Stern (five each).If the art is a little thin compared to what we’ve become accustomed to from this auctioneer, Welz draws solace from the inclusion in the afternoon session of the substantial glass collection of prof Walter Beck.Stephan Welz & Co’s Cape sale is on February 21 and 22. After these testers, the focus will move to Jo’burg, with sales from both major local houses in the ensuing couple of months. Bonhams’ major 2012 sale comes much later, in October, though rather earlier in the month than previously.

First Published in The Mail and Guardian

Jeremy Kuper

The South African Heritage Resources Agency has agreed to grant a temporary permit, for 20 years, to allow Irma Stern’s Arab Priest to be exported to the Orientalist Museum in Doha, Qatar. The painting was sold for about R34-million last March in London, but the new owner was refused a permanent licence to export it from South Africa.

“An agreement was reached that the Qatar museum would apply for a temporary export permit, which is currently being processed,” said Regina Isaacs, the agency’s heritage objects manager.The work, which Stern painted during her time in Zanzibar, “serves as a really valuable document for

South Africans of mutual respect between diverse cultures and religions”, said Isaacs. “The Arab Priest was a centrepiece in the Irma Stern Museum for many years, even though it was only on loan at the time.

Preserving the estate“The pool of outstanding cultural treasures of such quality in South Africa is small and artworks like these might be protected for the benefit of future generations. And to allow artworks of such quality to have been permanently exported from South Africa would diminish the national estate.” Said Christopher Peter, director of the Irma Stern Museum in Cape Town in the future, the painting may possibly be loaned to the institution for a year.The Irma Stern Trust initially felt strongly that the work should remain in South Africa, but this proposal “where it will go there and come back, if this all goes through, has worked out very well”, said Peter. The agency stresses the potential for certain objects to promote reconciliation and cultural understanding and aims “to redress past imbalances and ensure that heritage objects are available and accessible to future generations”.

Local neglectThe problem is that public money has not been forthcoming to incorporate art works of national importance in South African museums. “There is that [funding] gap in South Africa. But had the painting been bought by a private collector, it would have remained in the country,” said Isaacs. On the other hand, even if art stays in South Africa in a private residence, the public might not be able to view it, whereas more South Africans may see a work if it goes abroad to a major international gallery. Isaacs acknowledged that the government needed to prioritise scarce funds.“It’s not just about making more resources available,” she said, suggesting that tax incentives could be

created and other methods explored to encourage South Africans to keep works in the country.

Common practiceIsaacs said private collectors did lend artworks for exhibitions to national museums, as in the case of the Arab Priest. “So South Africans would have had an opportunity at some stage to view this artwork, if there was such an exhibition,” she said.The sale of the Arab Priest represents the first time a South African heritage artwork was bought by a for-eign public institution since the agency was set up. “So it’s a learning curve on many levels and there’s the need for relations between South Africa and the Qatar museum authorities … There’s all sorts of sensitivities, things that I think we all need to be aware of.” In terms of deciding when to prevent the export of so-called heritage artworks, “it’s important that far better criteria be set, specifically in the case of the Arab Priest”, said auctioneer Stephan Welz. He conceded that Stern produced perhaps her most exciting work during her stay in Zanzibar, yet “I found very little justification for barring the export”.

Rare treasures“It’s not as though works by Irma Stern are exceed-ingly rare, or that this was such a major work -- that there weren’t comparable works already in public collections.” The challenge for auctioneers like Welz is that ap-peals to the agency can take a long time and there is no certainty before an auction whether an artwork in South Africa will be allowed abroad.

“And no prospective buyer is going to be hanging around for years” to find out whether he or she will get the licence, he said.The agency refused per-manent export licences for eight art works between January and December.

Currency of culture

Anxious start to auction year beckons

42 SA ART TIMES. February 2012

BUSINESS ART | SA ART AUCTIONS

STRAUSS & CO. AUCTION: CAPE TOWNMonday 6 February 2012 The Vineyard Hotel, Conference Centre, Newlandsat 2 pm, The Professor Walter Beck Collection of Chinese Works of Art, Ceramics, JapaneseCloisonne’, Glass and Books

at 5pm, Jewellery and Decorative Artsat 8 pm South African Art and Furniture

PREVIEW: Friday 3 to Sunday 5 February from 10am to 5pm

WALKABOUTS: Stephan Welz and Emma Bedford, Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 February at 11am

CONTACT NUMBERS: 021 683 6560 / mobile 078 044 8185

CATALOGUES are available and can be purchased from our offices or viewed online www.straussart.co.za

William Joseph Kentridge: Head, Etching, R600 000 - 900 000 Stanley Faraday Pinker: Girl in Sunglasses, Oil on canvas, R300 000 - 500 000 Irma Stern: Portrait of a woman wearing a pink Hijab, Oil on canvas, R8 000 000 - 12 000 000

SA ART TIMES. February 2012 43

STRAUSS & CO : CAPE TOWN AUCTION | BUSINESS ART

SBSA 100507-11/11

Standard Bank Gallery 8 February to 5 April 2012

Monday to Friday: 8am � 4.30pm Saturday: 9am � 1pmTel: 011 631 4467 www.standardbankarts.co.za

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Standard Bank in partnership with Goethe-Institut and Goodman Gallery:

This particularly fine portrait by Ruth Everard Haden is due to come under the hammer on the 21st February at the saleroom of Stephan Welz & Company in Constantia, Cape Town. For further details regarding the auction please contact 021-794-6461 or ct@stephanwelzandco.co.za or visit www.stephanwelzandco.co.za

The Everard Group comprised of Edith King and Bertha Everard, Bertha’s daughters Ruth and Rosamund, Ruth’s daughter Leonora and Leonora’s daughter Nichola. Together they made up the remarkably creative family of women

painters who lived in Carolina in Mpumalanga. Isolated as they were from the artistic communi-ties of Pretoria and Cape Town, they developed a visual language that has avoided many of the sentimentalities of 20th century South African painting.

In 1923 Ruth Everard-Haden moved to Paris to continue her painting studies. Dissatisfied with the restrictive and conservative curriculum of the Slade, she received encouragement from her mother regarding this change. Bertha Everard had spent a similarly frustrating time in London as a young artist. During the years 1923-1927, Ruth’s exposure to the École de Paris and the Fauves, notably Matisse and Cézanne, saw her assimilate elements including a confident use of line and a Fauvist sensibility towards colour and paint which she was to employ throughout her career.“Though Ruth Everard may have felt a distinct preference for landscape painting, she kept in mind that she would have to develop as a portrait painter if she was to earn a living by art.” She was further encouraged by a letter written to her from Bertha detailing a visit to Bonnefoi, the family farm, undertaken by the Schweikerdt’s of Pretoria in 1929. Bertha wrote saying they were very taken with her [Ruth’s] portraits . Given the visual legacy of the landscapes produced by Ber-tha and her sister Edith King, it is understandable that Ruth would have wanted to carve a niche for herself in this talented family. Some of the strongest paintings by Ruth that appear illustrated in The Women of Bonnefoi include portraits and still lifes.

Mrs Wilmot of Carolina has been rendered in recognisably bold lines and confident colour resonating with rich detailing. Characteristic of Ruth’s oevre the attention to all over detailing includes the background and fabrics- the shawl in particular is worked with an intricate field of flowers. Similarly the tapestry fabric of the throw to the left of the subject is richly worked with stylised animals and patterning. Given Ruth’s embrace of the École de Paris it is interesting to compare this work to Henri Matisse’s La Robe Jaune Avec Guitare given the similarities in the pose and vibrancies of the respective artist’s palettes. Composed during the winter of 1922-23 Matisse’s sitter is integrated into the overall pat-terning- her yellow dress echoes the wallpaper and carpets; her features are simplified in order to retain her anonymity. Ruth’s sitter is however the focus of this work- her calm features are framed by white tiger lilies and her shawl. The lines of her white evening gown draw the viewer through the composition.Undertaken as a commission, Mrs Wilmot of Carolina, was rejected by the sitter who deemed it unflattering. This work was purchased directly from the artist in the mid-1980s by the current owner. This confident work was one of the last painted by Ruth- she was forced to stop painting in 1956 after a cataract operation failed to correct her deteriorating eyesight. Her earlier comments surrounding her family’s output seem particularly poignant given this early ending of her career: “There are not so many good that we can spare the ones that are .”

The Everard Group “Someday they may be reclassified as the equivalent in South African visual arts of the Brontë family in English literature. Certainly, had they lived abroad, their legacy may even have enjoyed the status of a Bloomsbury Group.Time will be the judge of this.” - Professor Alan Crump

The first auction of the 2012 calendar is scheduled to take place over the 21 & 22 February. There are 5 auction session scheduled.Public viewing will take place at The Great Cellar, Alphen Estate, Alphen Drive, Constantia. Viewing hours are 17 February 10am – 3pm, 18-19 February 10am – 5pm For further enquiries please contact 021-794-6461.The catalogue is available from both the Cape Town and Johannesburg offices and can also be viewed online at www.stephanwelzandco.co.za

Stephan Welz and Company are delighted to start their 2012 auction calendar in Cape Town.

SA ART TIMES. February 2012 45

STEPHAN WELZ & CO. CAPE TOWN AUCTION | BUSINESS ART

(Images) Lot 594: Keith Alexander: Cape Dutch, R 350 000 - 400 000. Lot 627: Irma Stern: Still life with lilies, R 3 000 000 - 5 000 000. Lot 628 : Gregoire Boonzaier: Tulips in a blue and white vase, R 120 000 - 140 000.

Ruth Everard Haden. Mrs Wilmot of Carolina,pre-sale estimate R800 000 – 1 000 000

Spring has come early in London. The Royal Academy is ablaze with all the colour and life of a new season; the air is heavy with blossom, leaves form a tunnel and a clearing in the woods takes on a green hue. David Hockney’s A Bigger Picture (until 9 April) is not billed as a retrospective, although it includes some signature older works to chart the artist’s interest in interpreting nature. It kicks off the 2012 season with what is predicted to be a blockbuster. Hockney has filled the enormous space of the Royal Academy largely with work from the past seven years in a joyous celebration of landscape painting. The hedonistic and cerebral works of the past are only recognisable in the intensity of colour and light. There is hardly a figure in sight as he explores the Wolds of his birthplace Yorkshire in compelling depth.

There is great theatricality in the sheer scale of his works. Canvasses are huge, the largest consisting of 32 individual pieces, and they immerse the viewer in a grand spectacle of nature in all her seasonal glory. Seasons are one thing that Los Angeles, Hockney’s home of many years, lacked, and he revels in the changing moods, often revisiting a spot again and again. Much of the work consists of series, sometimes a view at different times of year, but also, as with the 52 pieces of The Arrival of Spring, a changing vantage point of a familiar area. One cannot leave without feeling that you have actually experienced a bit of the magic of Yorkshire. Some colours may seem garish, at times forms are too stylised, and purists may carp about his use of an iPad for the latest series. What Hockney does give the viewer though, is a sense of his delight in nature and the ability to look at it anew.

This is a very different Hockney to the one on display at the Haunch of Venison’s The Mystery of Appearance, featuring ten post-war British artists (until 18 Feb). Although the luminous quality of light is there, the subject matter is much more brittle in a painting such as the erotic The Room Tarzana. Also on show is an early Lucian Freud drawing of Francis Bacon, Bacon’s snarling Pope in a cage, the thick impasto of both Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff, whose subjects are sometimes hard to decipher beneath the paint. Michael Andrews’ picture of The Thames at Low Tide gives a fascinating and disorien-tating perspective of the shoreline. The varied elements of the chosen artists are perhaps most interesting when viewed across the perspective of time: while Hockney has continued to develop, Patrick Caulfield’s work, for example, has hardly changed at all.

Damien Hirst has covered Gagosian galleries worldwide in spots. For over a month (until 18 Feb) all eleven galleries – from New York to Hong Kong will host The Complete Spot Paintings 1986 to 2011, with an added bonus that if you visit all the locations you can win a signed Hirst print. The galleries each have a different emphasis on which spots they show, and the small Mayfair one features only little canvasses, with somewhere between half a spot and four spots, and some as tiny as a matchbox. Bright and colourful they may be, but it’s hard to give them much more than a cursory glance and not feel that this is

one big marketing ploy. In the cavernous space near King’s Cross it is easier to grasp some of the fascination with the subject, as larger canvasses play with patterns and shapes. Apparently no colour is repeated, and although they look as if the colour is applied mechanically, there is an army of art students choosing random colours and making them look perfect. The ones I enjoyed most were the slightly flawed ones – after all, polka dots were a fashion state-ment long before Hirst, and it’s hard to see the reason for the exorbitant price tag. Gerhard Richter’s exploration of the spatial tension between blocks of colour in his work somehow had an integrity that this facile theme lacks. It will be interesting to see what Hirst’s forthcoming retrospective at the Tate, which forms part of the Olympics, says about the artist.

The Serpentine Gallery presents the first major exhibition of one of Brazil’s most famous artists, Lygia Pape (1927 – 2004) in Magnetized Space (until 19 Feb). Pape was renowned for her experimental work, and a founder member of the Neo Concrete movement, which is often seen as the start of contemporary art in Brazil. The work ranges from delicate woodcut prints of geometric shapes, to three-line poetry and crackly films of people breaking out of boxes. As you enter, her short film, Eat Me, with its probing close-ups of a hairy pair of lips aquiver with saliva, competes with the familiar images of the heads of favela children popping up from an enormous sheet as they move in unison. The political content and provocative power of her avant-garde work are certainly diluted by time and distance, but the wall of tiny wooden cut-out shapes - one for each day of the year – that forms her Book of Time from the early Sixties, is as captivating in its own way as the almost mystical golden threads that shim-mer and catch the light in the recent installation Web.

An older generation of German artists is well known in Britain – Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer and Gerhard Richter, to mention a few. Gesamtkunstwerk: New Art from Germany at the Saatchi Gallery until 30 April introduces some new names that reflect the scope of German contemporary art. Bizarre, grotesque, surreal, and rarely beautiful, they don’t all have the collective strength and emotive power of their predecessors, but certain names stand out. There is a lot of humour in Georg Herold’s delightful reclining figures in vivid colours, the surreal pageantry of the brothers Gert and Uwe Tobias’s bright woodcuts, the brash photomontages of Kirstine Roepstorff and Zhivago Duncan’s hypnotically playful Pretentious Crap, with its strange engines circling an endless track. A work such as the wall of 170 exquisite ceramic tiles that make up Andro Wekua’s Sunset has rich and glowing colours, as do Thomas Kiesewetter’s abstract sculptures in metal. The impact of the group as a whole though, leaves one with an impression of loud, wild contortions, a generation with the same inner angst but perhaps not quite the same depth.The largest exhibition ever in London of Anselm Kiefer’s work, Il Mistero delle Cattedrali, is on at the White Cube in Bermondsey until 26 February. The Halycon Gallery shows work by the contemporary glass artist Dale Chihuly untill 23 February.

Nushin Elahi’s London Letter

46 SA ART TIMES. February 2012

(Top left) Damien Hirst: Spot Paintings, Gagosian Art Gallery, London(Top right) Daivid Hockney: The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East YorkshireThe Royal Academy

(Middle left) Lygia Pape: Ttéia 1, C (Web) 2011, Serpentine Gallery, London(Middle right) Lygia Pape: Livro do Tempo (Book of Time) 1961-63, Serpentine Gallery, London

(Below) Georg Herold: Untitled , 2010, Batten, canvas, lacquer, thread and screws Image courtesy of the Saatchi Gallery, London

International Auctioneers and Valuers - bonhams.com/sapictures

Bonhams, world leaders in the market for South African Art, are delighted to present an outstanding collection of works by all the modern South African masters. Highlights include important pieces by Irma Stern, Gerard Sekoto, J.H. Pierneef, Alexis Preller and Anton van Wouw among others.

+44 20 7468 8213sapictures@bonhams.com

Irma Stern (1894-1966)Zulu woman, 1935oil on canvas£400,000 - 600,000ZAR5,000,000 – 7,000,000

The South African SaleWednesday 21 March 2012New Bond Street, London