SA art to be auctioned at Sotheby’s

Top South African and British artists are joining forces for a high-profile charity auction in London later this month.

South African artist Beezy Bailey, along with with Tara and Jessica Getty, members of the billionaire oil family who live in South Africa, has persuaded leading British and South African artists to donate their work for the auction at Sotheby’s.

Proceeds from the sales will be donated to programmes for education and poverty alleviation, such as the Nkomo Primary School in KwaZulu-Natal, where 17 percent of the students under the age of 13 have been orphaned by HIV/Aids.

South African artists including Deborah Bell, Pieter Hugo and David Goldblatt – who are becoming increasingly popular on the international stage – have donated their work to the auction.

British artists Antony Gormley, Gavin Turk and Jonathan Yeo all have pieces in the auction, with estimates ranging from £2 500 to £150 000.

Bob Gosani, one of the few working black photographers under apartheid, has contributed a picture of Nelson Mandela as a young man boxing on a Johannesburg roof-top in 1957.

Bailey – who is famous for the work of his artistic alter-ego, the self-taught painter and black domestic worker Joyce Ntobe – is a co-founder of Art for Africa, the project behind the auction.

Previous Art for Africa auctions held in Johannesburg have seen buyers paying prices well below the going rate. A member of the Oppenheimer family, for example, bought a Marlene Dumas painting for about a third of its market value.

It is hoped that moving the auction to London and including the work of British artists will raise higher bids.

“In our African culture,” says Bailey, “There is a word, ubuntu, which means concern and kindness to others. If the auction goes according to plan, patrons of the arts will demonstrate plenty of the spirit of ubuntu in their bids.

Art for Africa, Sotheby’s London, September 21 (www.sothebys.com)

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