LOST & FOUND: STRAUSS & CO OFFERS UNCOVERS LOST WORKS BY PRELLER AND KUMALO www.straussart.co.za
Karel Nel 1955– Wayfarer, Mudif, Johannesburg, signed, dated 2004/2005, sheet size: 181 by 181 cm, R400 000 – 600 000
Two newly rediscovered works – a Sydney Kumalo bronze from the sculptor’s golden period and Alexis Preller’s transformative study of a wounded soldier – are among the stand-out lots on Strauss & Co’s forthcoming Johannesburg live auction, due to be held at the Wanderers Club on 13 November. The 391-lot sale also includes important pieces by Gerard Sekoto, Irma Stern, William Kentridge JH Pierneef and Karel Nel. The summer sale, Strauss & Co’s concluding live auction of 2017, also includes works from the Barloworld Collection, notably two significant pieces by Adolph Jentsch and Maud Sumner.
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Sydney Kumalo’s Madala VI (estimate R700 000 – 900 000) is a large and very rare example from this acclaimed sculptor’s important Madala (old man) series. In 1966, Kumalo began work on a series of sculptures with this as his theme. He produced eight distinctive figures and only cast a single edition of Madala VI, which the present owner acquired from art dealer Egon Guenther in 1967. Great anticipation surrounds Alexis Preller’s Fleurs du Mal (estimate R4-6 million), one of three important Preller lots on offer. First exhibited in 1946, two years after it was painted, this iconic work was, until
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