Strauss & Co October Sales | Art, Books, Zines & Collectables

Strauss & Co, Online

Running across a series of timed online sales from 12 to 14 October, the programme is broad but carefully connected, with signs, symbols and the written word appearing across several of the sessions.

The main October ART sale moves easily between generations and mediums. Southern African landscapes sit alongside works by Ephraim Ngatane, John Koenakeefe Mohl and Andrew Verster, while more recent pieces include thickly painted oils by Lwando Dlamini. There are also harder-to-find works linked to Norman Catherine and Walter Battiss’s collaborative Fook Island project.

A separate sale from the Peter Jaff Library shifts the focus to books. Jaff was a respected ceramicist, and his library includes specialist volumes on contemporary British studio ceramics, offering collectors a more scholarly strand within the October programme.

Markings, Signs and Symbols brings together works shaped by visual codes both familiar and unusual. Esther Mahlangu and Joachim Schönfeldt feature alongside ceramics by Hylton Nel and Ardmore. Susan Woolf’s studies of taxi passenger hand signals add another layer, sitting neatly alongside Schönfeldt’s portraits of minibus taxis.

The Sidney Goldblatt session, Experiments in Colour and Form, draws from the collection of the late artist’s widow, Wendy Goldblatt. The selection spans oil, watercolour, ink and mixed media, reflecting an artist who resisted being tied to a single style. Among the highlights are works made in response to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, painted while Goldblatt listened to radio reports and moving his practice further into abstraction.

The final session turns to zines and journals, with material spanning more than six decades. Highlights include The Classic, edited by Nat Nakasa and Barney Simon in the late 1960s; the anti-apartheid art and literary journal The Bloody Horse from the early 1980s; and Bitterkomix, the influential Afrikaans counterculture publication associated with Conrad Botes and Anton Kannemeyer.

Taken together, the October sales offer a wider view of collecting – not only paintings and sculpture, but also the books, publications and archival material that help shape the stories around art.

Images courtesy of Strauss & Co and participating artists.

Auction Details

Auction
Strauss & Co October Sales

Format
Timed Online Sales

Sales Include
October ART
Books from the Peter Jaff Library
Markings, Signs and Symbols
Experiments in Colour and Form: Sidney Goldblatt
Zines and Journals

Closing Dates
Sales begin closing Monday, 12 October 2026 from 14:00
Final sessions close Wednesday, 14 October 2026 at 18:00

Organiser
Strauss & Co

Format
Online auction