This September, Sotheby’s London is delighted to present our Modern & Contemporary African Art Auction, taking place in our exciting new on-live sale format on 27 September 2024 in our New Bond St Galleries. This auction will feature a diverse array of artworks, from significant pieces by established masters to innovative creations by emerging artists. Notable highlights include works by Lisa Brice, Eduardo Villa, David Goldblatt, Irma Stern, Ben Enwonwu, Michael Armitage, Meleko Mokgosi and Gavin Jantjes.

Irma Stern
Lady of the Harem, 1946
£600,000-800,000
© The Irma Stern Estate

Leading this season’s sale is Irma Stern’s Lady of the Harem (£600,000-800,000). With its luscious jewel-toned strokes, Stern explores the lingering effects of slavery in Zanzibar and the limited lives of the women of the local harems. Stern’s striking portrait of a member of a Zanzibari harem captures her constrained history, giving her agency at a time when she had none. Also featured in the auction is Gerard Sekoto’s Portrait of a Boy (£18,000-25,000). Executed shortly after the artist’s arrival in Paris, Portrait of a Boy by South Africa’s foremost modernist was gifted to the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts in 1959 by Dr. & Mrs. Edgar Berman of Baltimore, Maryland. One of four works by the artist in the auction, Sekoto’s work is centred on the exploration the human spirit through the lens of social realism, acting as windows into the collective consciousness of a nation undergoing profound societal change.

Zanele Muholi
Sasa, Bleeker, New York, 2016, Somnyama Ngonyama Series, 2012-2018
£5,000-7,000
© the artist

Zizipho Poswa
Magodi, 2020
£12,000-18,000
© the artist

Accompanying these notable masters is an iconic Cape Farmhouse scene by Jacob Hendrik Pierneef. Over the course of his long and hallowed career, which mirrored the rise of Afrikaner nationalism in South Africa in the wake of independence from the British, Pierneef would come to refine South African landscape painting of the era. His distinctive style, characterized by geometric simplification and dramatic use of light and colour, captured the essence of the South African highveld and established him as one of the country’s most iconic artists.

Gerard Sekoto
Portrait of a Boy,1950s
£18,000-25,000
© The Gerard Sekoto Foundation

These tour de force works share the spotlight with a thoughtfully curated assortment of the most sought-after contemporary artists working today, including Untitled (from the Sex Show series)
(£ 7,000-9,000), a 1992 work by Lisa Brice, whose world record piece No Bare Back, After Embah sold at Sotheby’s in 2021 for $3.16 Million. Sotheby’s is also delighted to include the work of ceramist Zizipho Poswa, who makes her Frieze Sculpture debut in London this month, and whose piece Magodi (£12,000-18,000) is inspired by Xhosa hairstyles. Also included in this season’s sale are works by Zanele Muholi, Athi Patra Ruga, Jack Kabangu, Bambo Sibiya and
Toyin Ojih Odutola.
Click here to view the complete catalogue. The auction will be open for online bidding from 2:00 PM BST on 20 September 2024 and will close with a live bidding session on 27 September 2024, which will begin streaming at 2:00 PM BST.