18/11/2024
Layers of Life
The Textures of Helen Mmakgabo Mmapula Sebidi’s Art
A highlight in Aspire Art's 20th Century & Contemporary Art auction on 20 November, Helen Sebidi’s The Boys Return Home from Initiation encapsulates the dynamic interplay of spirituality, identity, and human experience. Rendered with Sebidi’s signature textured application of vibrant reds, blues, ochres, and purples, the painting radiates an energy that feels alive, echoing the rhythms of African mythology and folklore.
15/11/2024
Timeless Elegance
The Iconic Charm and Enduring Allure of the Hermès Kelly Bag
Leading Aspire Art's To Have & To Hold: Iconic Handbags Online Auction are two exquisite Hermès Kelly bags, crafted with masterful precision and unmatched luxury. Featuring Togo leather and iconic gold hardware, these treasures capture the essence of sophistication and timeless style.
13/11/2024
George Pemba:
The Passionate Observer and Visual Chronicler
One of the highlights on Aspire Art's 20th Century & Contemporary Art auction in Cape Town on 20 November, is a captivating portrait of a young Xhosa woman, painted in 1948 by the celebrated artist George Pemba.
04/11/2024
The Supercar That Defined a Generation:
The cover lot for Aspire Art's upcoming Collectable Cars Auction is the 1997 Lamborghini Diablo SV, famously known as a Hallmark of Lamborghini’s Engineering Prowess and one of the fastest supercars of the 1990s.
04/11/2024
The Most Beautiful Car Ever Made
1963 Jaguar E-Type 3.8 Series 1 Roadster
Aspire Art are thrilled to unveil the 1963 Jaguar E-Type 3.8 Series 1 Roadster, one of the most desirable and sought-after cars to feature in their inaugural Collectable Car Live Auction in Johannesburg on 9 November.
04/11/2024
Innovation Meets Iconic Design:
Ferrari's Revolutionary 1976 308 GTB Vetroresina
With great excitement, Aspire Art are proud to present one of the only five remaining 1976 Ferrari 308 GTB Vetroresinas in South Africa. A highlight lot for the inaugural Collectable Car Live Auction in Johannesburg on 9 November, this extraordinary car offers collectors a rare opportunity to own a truly iconic piece of Ferrari history.
01/10/2024
Portraits in Profile
The Evocative Simplicity of Mark Hipper’s Sketches
Aspire Art's current Contemporary Art auction features a striking collection of Mark Hipper's evocative portraits. Known for his minimalist pencil sketches, Hipper captures raw emotion and vulnerability, challenging traditional portraiture with his delicate yet powerful works.
27/09/2024
Contemporary Textile Art
Aspire Art's current Contemporary Art auction features three bold artists who push the boundaries of textile art.
27/09/2024
From Canvas to Screen
The Technical Craft of Jake Aikman’s Prints
Aspire Art’s Contemporary Art auction features Jake Aikman’s striking screen prints, where layered textures and masterful use of light and shadow bring his seascapes to life.
27/09/2024
Unravelling Narratives
Aspire Art’s Contemporary Art online auction features Michaela Younge’s captivating felt tapestries, where playful aesthetics meet unsettling, surreal narratives.
09/09/2024
Ernest Pignon-Ernest: Street Art and Struggle
Tracing the pioneer of street art's ties with South Africa
The Soweto-Warwick project is a wonderful example of Ernest Pignon-Ernest's interventions, which blend the boundaries between art and the urban landscape, creating visual statements which are catalysts for thought and change. Read more about the French artist's ties with South Africa and how the artwork coming up on Aspire Art's 20th Century and Contemporary Art Auction on the 11th September represents a holistic embodiment of Pignon-Ernest's art-making process.
05/09/2024
Irma Stern's Golden Era
Travelling the 'Land of Strong Colours'
Few artists could boast of travels as extensive and vibrant as that of Irma Stern. Her restless spirit drove her to explore the farthest corners of Europe, but it was the vast landscapes and diverse cultures of Africa that truly ignited her passion. Africa, with its vibrant and diverse cultures, provided Irma Stern with the inspiration that would shape her legacy.
08/08/2024
Celebrating the Feminine Vision in Art
As we celebrate Women’s Month, Aspire Art's current Paintings Online Auction fittingly features a powerful lineup of notable women artists. While Women’s Day often conjures images of boldness and assertiveness, many women painters like Cape-based Clare Menck offer a refreshing perspective.
07/08/2024
COLLECTING INSIGHT
Don’t Blink: 5 Young Contemporary Painters You Don’t Want to Miss
Aspire Art’s current Painting Online Auction, celebrates a wide selection of modern masters – including Gregoire Boonzaier, Nel Erasmus, Christo Coetzee and Trevor Coleman – all working in the rich and enticing medium of painting. Complementing and contrasting these masters, young artists are developing techniques and taking lessons from those who came before them to present contemporary audiences with new and bold paintings relating to their current conditions and unique mindsets.
05/08/2024
How to Take Care of Your Paintings
Over time, both the canvas/board and the paint itself will be effected by the environment and the duration of time. Although it might seem daunting at first, a few small changes and attention to your beloved artworks will stretch both their quality and value over the years.
Whether the work is being safely stored or hung on your wall, there are four basic things need to be taken into consideration: Light, Temperature, Humidity, and Dust.
12/07/2024
Creative Bonds
South African Artists and the International Avant-Garde
Aspire Art's Works on Paper Timed-Online auction features a collection of works by South African masters alongside significant pieces by their international peers including pieces by Victor Vasarely, Antoni Tàpies, Joan Miró, Gerard Richter, Henry Moore, and more.
11/07/2024
Caring for Your Artworks on Paper
Top Tips and Purchase Considerations
Artworks on paper, whether they are drawings, prints, watercolours, or pastels, offer a unique and delicate beauty that requires careful attention and maintenance. Proper care and informed purchasing decisions can ensure that your paper-based art remains vibrant and intact for many years. Here are some top tips for caring for your artworks on paper and key considerations when buying them.
05/07/2024
The Female Gaze Takes Center Stage
Current Achievements of Contemporary South African Artists
The month of July welcomes a new special collection of works for our Works on Paper Timed-Online auction. As a women-led auction house, the Aspire Art team is excited to present a collection of artworks by contemporary women artists shaping our artistic landscape locally and abroad.
The following artists have showcased their resilience and brilliance in the contemporary creative spheres. With a special feature of a work on paper by three artists in our current auction, we delve into their most recent achievements:
Gabrielle Goliath
A multidisciplinary artist, known for her sensitive negotiations and conceptually distilled understandings of complex social discourses, specifically in relation to gendered and sexualised violence, Gabrielle Goliath boasts an extraordinary career. Participating in numerous, prominent local and international exhibitions, she has also won multiple awards, notably the Future Generation Art Prize – Special Prize (2019), the Standard Bank Young Artist Award (2019), and the Institut Français, Afrique en Créations Prize at the Bamako Biennale (2017).
Currently undertaking a PhD at the Institute for Creative Arts (UCT), Goliath has recently featured at two prestigious Biennales. The first being in 2023 at the Sharjah Biennial 15, which took place in the United Arab Emirates from 7 February to 11 June. The 30th-anniversary edition of the Biennial was titled Thinking Historically in the Present and was conceived by the late Okwui Enwezor and curated by Hoor Al Qasimi.
Secondly, Goliath’s multi-channel video & sound cycles installation, Personal Accounts (2024), features at this year’s 60th International Art Exhibition for the Venice Biennale Foreigners Everywhere, curated by Adriano Pedrosa, and open to the public until the 24th of November.
Installation view of Personal Accounts, 2024-, multi-cycle video & sound installation, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, La Biennale di Venezia (2024), photos by Luc Meneghel, courtesy of the artist’s website.
Lady Skollie
Lot 42: Lady Skollie, Ikwe |, 2019. Estimate: R 35 000 - 45 000
Laura Windvogel, known as the artist and activist Lady Skollie, creates otherworldly images as her work delves into themes of gender, sex and the politics of lust and identity. A young, exciting artist, Skollie is taking the South African art world by storm, both within and outside of the gallery/museum space. Notable achievements include being part of the 2018 edition of OkayAfrica's 100 Women, an annual list which honours women across ten different fields for their achievements; commissioned to design the new R5 coin to commemorate 25 years of constitutional democracy in South Africa (2019); announced as the 10th recipient of the prestigious FNB Art Prize (2020) and receiving the prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist Award in 2022. Currently, Lady Skollie is showing at the Norval Foundation in Cape Town. Titled Groot Gat, the exhibition looks into the intersections of fantasy, history and indigenousness and takes place until the 15th of September this year.
Installation view of the Groot Gat at Norval Foundation, courtesy of their website.
Penny Siopis
Lot 91: Penny Siopis, Chambre Cinquante-six | Estimate: R 15 000 - 20 000
With a career spanning more than four decades, the cherished South African artist Penny Siopis, has been channelling what she refers to as the ‘poetics of vulnerability’ through engaging with topics such as migration, memory, body politics and the relations between the human and non-human through the mediums of painting, film/video, photography and installation.
Marking her first museum retrospective in Europe, Siopis participated in Part III of What If Women Ruled the World? at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (EMST), Greece until November of this year.
What if Women Ruled the World? is a unique program that has exclusively featured works by women artists. This unprecedented initiative to dedicate a year of multiple exhibitions by artists who identify as female, both for their permanent and temporary exhibitions, marks a first for a major public museum.
Views of the exhibition courtesy of the artist’s Instagram page
Other exciting contemporary female artists in our Works on Paper Timed-Online auction include Ruby Swinney, Diane Victor, Katharien de Villiers, Mia Chaplin, Grace Cross and many more!
LEFT: Lot 35: Ruby Swinney, Seeker | Estimate: R 30 000 - 40 000
RIGHT: Lot 27: Diane Victor, Portrait 1 (from the Smoke Drawings: Missing Children Series (Sacmec))
LEFT: Lot 30: Katharien de Villiers, Pet the Python | Estimate: R 7 000 - 10 000
RIGHT: Lot 43: Grace Cross, Childhood Blanket | Estimate: R 12 000 - 16 000
Auction
Works on Paper
4 - 16 July 2024
Discover more from Works on Paper
SALE ENQUIRIES
Cape Town: +27 21 422 5100 | amy@aspireart.net
Johannesburg: +27 10 109 7989 | carina@aspireart.net
05/07/2024
The Whimsical World of Beezy Bailey
Explore a magical collection of Works on Paper
Working in a variety of media, including printmaking, painting and sculpture, Beezy Bailey has been a practising artist for over 30 years and has held over 20 one-man shows in London, Johannesburg and Cape Town. Explore his whimsical and fantastical, world – rich in creative imagination – and bursting with delight, in a series of works featured in Aspire's Works on Paper Timed-Online Auction from 4-16 July.
27/06/2024
SALE RESULTS: 20th Century & Contemporary Art, 19 June 2024
Striking Results and New Records Achieved at Auction in Johannesburg
The recent offering by Aspire Art in Johannesburg reinforced the company's continued success in its specialised art segments and welcomed collectors’ optimism and confidence in the market. Featuring a strong collection of contemporary artworks as well as significant pieces from the 20th century, the auction further focused on women artists who performed well and debuted international works including a famous print by David Hockney which set a new auction record.
13/06/2024
Aspire Art presents David Hockney’s Hotel Acatlán: Two Weeks Later, 1985.
We are thrilled to offer on auction, for the first time in South Africa, Hockney’s impressive Hotel Acatlán: Two Weeks Later (1985) as part of the collection of our upcoming evening sale in Johannesburg on 19 June at 7 pm.
12/06/2024
Irma Stern: Dahlias and Fruit
A magnificent still-life from 1960 on auction at Aspire on 19 June
Aspire Art is thrilled to bring to auction, on the 19 June, Stern's Dahlias and Fruit – a wonderful still-life alive with colour and bursting with expressive energy.
06/06/2024
Artist Focus: Penny Siopis
Aspire Art brings two magnificent Siopis works to auction on 19 June
Following the recent opening of Penny Siopis' first retrospective in Europe, For Dear Life. A Retrospective, on the 17th of May at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Aspire Art is thrilled to bring to auction, two fantastic works by the artist.
06/06/2024
Women on the Rise: Celebrating Female Artists
Aspire Art Celebrates Women Making Strides on the Secondary Market
Aspire Art’s upcoming auction on 19 June mirrors the market’s burgeoning recognition of women in the art world. With a special focus on South African artists who are redefining the landscape, this auction celebrates the brilliance of female artists.
17/05/2024
Trevor Coleman
A Beloved South African Painter.
Trevor Coleman works feature on Aspire Art's 20th/21st Century classics sale
16/05/2024
The Vibrant World of Ardmore Ceramics
Celebrating Collaborative Creativity
Through its blend of artistic excellence and social impact, Ardmore Ceramics has carved out a unique niche in the global art scene. Each piece from the studio is a testament to the rich cultural heritage of South Africa and the talent and dedication of the artisans who bring these creations to life.
14/05/2024
Peter Clarke
Creating Visual Narratives Through the Decades
Aspire Art presents in its 20th/21st Century Classics Timed-Online auction, a collection of works by Peter Clarke from key periods within his personal life and artistic career.
12/04/2024
Tretchikoff's Eternal Palette: The Timeless Dance of Colours
Tales that go beyond the canvas, stories of chance meetings and moments frozen in time – Aspire Art is excited to bring to market exquisite works by prolific artist, the one and only Vladimir Tretchikoff.
11/04/2024
Artist Focus: Mashudu Nevhutalu
Aspire Art features a work by Johannesburg-born artist Mashudu Nevhutalu (1992), who reworks found photographs into evocative paintings, exploring shared memories and fluid histories on their current Contemporary Online sale.
09/04/2024
Legacy of Visionaries: Celebrating the New Group Artists and Their Global Impact
Taking Flight: A Selection of Works from the Phoenix Collection showcases exquisite pieces that transcend expression and celebrate artists that have made significant strides in South African art history. The artists featured highlight the transformative impact of the New Group movement, with a notable number also affirming their global impact having graced the prestigious halls of international biennales.