Strauss & Co is pleased to announce the successful conclusion of J. H. Pierneef: Close to Home, the third edition of its annual single-artist auction devoted to the much-admired landscape painter J. H. Pierneef. The sale earned just shy of R10 million / $570 386 from 53 lots sold, with a respectable lot sell-through rate of 84.13%.
“We were delighted with the third iteration of this annual sale, in particular the sustained demand for work by Pierneef,” says Alastair Meredith, the head of auction at Strauss & Co. “The linocuts and etchings did brilliantly, most of them selling for well above their pre-sale auction estimates. We had bidders in the room as well as online, and there was huge competition for individual works. A third of the winning buyers were new clients to Strauss & Co, which is very encouraging for the future. Pierneef is clearly reaching new audiences, which is exciting.”
The sale offered collectors an especially rich trove of works from the 1920s, a formative time in Pierneef’s development as an artist who achieved national standing by the decade’s end. The highest-earning works were both oils from the early 1920s. Die Wynkelder by Du Toits Plaas, Krommerivier, Stellenbosch, a study of a wine cellar made in 1921, sold after nine bids for R1.7 million / $100 676. Painted a year later, Bushveld Landscape with Trees, also went a bidder in the room for R1.15 million / $65 605.
The live-virtual auction featured 63 lots in diverse media that represented the many facets of Pierneef’s prodigious career. A casein from 1926 depicting a landscape in the Eastern Free State sold to an online buyer for R577 625 / $32 803. A series of 10 linocuts made in 1920 and portraying dwellings from old Pretoria all traded above estimate. The top earner depicted journalist and historian Gustav Preller’s house and sold for R93 800 / $5 327.
The auction’s much-anticipated cover lot, Rustenburg Kloof, a nearly metre-tall oil depicting a well-known geological landmark in the Magaliesberg range west of Pretoria, was withdrawn just before the sale started. With new information coming to light at the eleventh hour, and given the importance and profile of the work, we thought it prudent to withdraw the painting from Tuesday’s sale. We were naturally disappointed by the late change and apologise for any inconvenience caused to our clients. We are looking forward to presenting the painting to the market during our flagship sale week in Cape Town in September.
The mood at the sale, which also saw continued strong interest in reference books devoted to Pierneef, was buoyant.
“We had a lot of people in the room for our sale and nearly 500 people viewing it via livestream,” says Meredith. “Overall, Pierneef’s market is very strong, with huge demand locally as well as internationally. Pierneef is finally being acknowledged as a fabulous, world-class landscape painter, an artist who we should treasure as South Africans. I expect his market will continue to increase, with interest spread across all price points.”
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