There’s looking through an auction catalogue, and then there’s mentally rearranging your house to accommodate what you’ve just found. Strauss & Co’s September sales have us doing plenty of the latter. First up is the Modern and Contemporary Art Evening Sale on September 15, with names including Irma Stern, William Kentridge, Penny Siopis and Athi-Patra Ruga. Then, on September 16, Mid-Century Modern: The Making of Modern Design brings some seriously good 20th-century furniture and design into the mix. Call it the Mad Men starter pack if you like, but there’s a reason these design icons have never really gone out of style.
To echo the memorable words of the Spice Girls: “I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want.” From a Stern we could stare at all day to some rather fabulous chairs we’d love to own, here are five lots that caught our eye.
Irma Stern, Dahlias, 1935
You could almost eat it. There’s something wonderfully joyous about Stern’s Dahlias, with its mauve, pink, orange and red blooms piled into a copper pot against the yellow wall of her Cape Town studio and a turquoise tablecloth adding even more colour to the mix. Painted in 1935, it comes from a period when Stern was really starting to have fun with colour, laying the paint on thick and making those flowers practically burst off the canvas. Sculptor Jacob Epstein famously stated that nobody living painted flowers better, once telling Stern that Renoir’s roses looked “like paper” next to hers. We can see what he meant. Estimated at R8m–R10m, this one is firmly dream-buy territory, or for the serious collectors.
Maggie Laubser, Portrait of a Woman with Headscarf Holding Flowers
Sometimes a painting has a history almost as interesting as the work itself. And this one has both. It’s a beauty: that blazing yellow headscarf, deep blue dress, red lips and flowers, and the bold colour Laubser was so good at. But you may have seen it before. The painting belonged to Elita de Klerk and hung behind FW de Klerk in his final recorded address, released after his death in 2021, in which the former president apologised for the pain and damage caused by apartheid. Quite a history for one gorgeous painting. Estimated at R700,000–R1m.
Athi-Patra Ruga, The Lands of Azania (2014–2094)
It’s the colour that gets you first. Ruga’s tapestry is bright, playful and packed with detail. Then you start reading the map. Sodom, Kuntistan, Zwartheid and Nunubia are among the territories in Azania, the fictional world Ruga has created to explore everything from politics and nationalism to identity and belonging. “Mapmaking is the first step of nationalism,” he has said. Ruga works across performance, video, painting, sculpture and tapestry, and his work has been shown from Cape Town to New York. This is art you could spend a long time looking at and find something new every time. Estimated at R150,000–R200,000.
Gerrit Rietveld, pair of ‘Red and Blue’ armchairs, after a 1918 design
Why have art on your walls when you can sit in it? With their blocks of primary colour, black frames and sharp geometric lines, Rietveld’s “Red and Blue” chairs look a little like a Mondrian painting brought to life. The original chair was designed in 1918 and became an icon of the Dutch De Stijl movement, turning simple pieces of wood into something closer to sculpture. This pair, dating from about 1980, was made after Rietveld’s original design and comes from the Pretoria home of artist and graphic designer Ernst de Jongh. Put them in a quiet room and they’ll steal the show. Put them in a maximalist one and they’ll join the party. Estimated at R15,000–R20,000.
Arne Vodder, set of six ‘Model 203’ dining chairs
Proof that you don’t need bright colour to make an impression. Designed by Danish architect and designer Vodder, a pupil of the great Finn Juhl, these “Model 203” dining chairs are all crisp white upholstery, warm teak and beautifully simple lines. There’s cleverness in the detail too: the backrests gently pivot, making them particularly comfortable to sit in. Dating from about 1950–1960, the set of six still has the original France & Søn manufacturer’s medallions. Best of all, they’re eminently liveable. Whether your house is crisp and contemporary or you’re already mid-century mad, we’d happily pull one of these up to the table. Estimated at R50,000–R60,000.
