MODERN MASTERS BEN ENWONWU, IRMA STERN AND GERARD SEKOTO LEAD BONHAMS MODERN & CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN ART SALE
FESTAC ‘77 by the revered master of Nigerian art, Ben Enwonwu, (estimate £300,000 - 500,000)
London – Master works by major African artists will be offered in the Modern and Contemporary African Art sale in London on 16 October 2024. The Modern section of the auction includes a bouquet of dahlias by Irma Stern from 1935; a poignant interior scene set in Sophiatown in the late 1930s by Black South African painter, Gerard Sekoto and ten remarkable works by Ben Enwonwu, one of which, FESTAC ‘77, was inspired by the Second World Black Festival of Arts and Culture, one of the first festivals of art and culture to be held in Nigeria.
Helene Love-Allotey, Head of Modern and Contemporary African Art Department, said: “Our autumn sale showcases the extraordinary range of work from African artists throughout the continent. Modern masterpieces by Irma Stern will be hanging alongside the other great names of African Art: 10 works by Ben Enwonwu, and Gerard Sekoto. There is also a vibrant selection of Contemporary art by artists such as William Kentridge, Marlene Dumas, Esther Mahlangu, whose mural will be featured at this year’s Frieze, and Slawn. We are delighted that a spectacular installation by Ibrahim Mahama from the Saatchi Collection will be another highlight of this very strong sale.”
Highlights of the Modern African Art Sale section include:
FESTAC ‘77 by Ben Enwonwu (estimate £300,000 - 500,000) was inspired by FESTAC 1977, (the Second World Black Festival of Arts and Culture), a cultural initiative focused on African art, and the artists’ role in promoting African aspirations. For Enwonwu, the woman’s three-quarter profile and regal posture represented his ideal of African culture; beautiful, powerful and full of creative potential. The picture is reminiscent of Enwonwu's most famous portrait, Tutu of the Ife princess Adetutu Ademiluyi, which Bonhams sold for £1.2m in 2018, a world record for a Nigerian painting. In another work in the sale, Negritude, 1988 (£200,000 - 300,000), Enwonwu has conveyed African culture through a sinuous, iconic female against an abstracted dynamic background.
Irma Stern’s Dahlias, 1935 (estimate £400,000 - 600,000) was first shown in her exhibition at the Criterion Restaurant Ballroom, Johannesburg in 1935, and was among a series of paintings of flowers that were hailed by contemporary critics as “full of depth, of light and shade and of gracious loveliness. The gladioli, the magnolias and the dahlias are exquisite".
Irma Stern (South African, 1894-1966) Dahlias. Estimate £400,000-600,000;
These are the first monumental flower pieces by the artist – Dahlias is a substantial 90 x 94in – and the first works of Stern’s that are clearly composed in terms of colour. No longer content to use colour descriptively, in this work Stern created colour combinations – and harmonies – that explore differing emotional conditions while also describing form. The flower pieces she made at this time marks Stern's emergence as perhaps the finest colourist in South African art.
Gerard Sekoto painted Interior with Woman c.1939 (estimate £120,000 - 180,000) in Sophiatown, a suburb of Johannesburg, where he lived from 1939 to 1942. As a Black South African, Sekoto’s life in Sophiatown was an opportunity to immerse himself in urban culture. Having come from a more rural background, Sekoto felt he needed to know more about society in this cultural hub. Sekoto produced a prodigious amount of work in different media in the years he was there.
Gerard Sekoto (South African, 1894-1966) Interior with Woman (estimate: £120,000 - 180,000)
Interior with Woman, conveys a sympathetic curiosity about the living conditions of his Sophiatown subjects. In a domestic space, a woman rests from her labours while her family is at work. The lack of electricity in the house has given Sekoto the chance to explore the emotional and dramatic potential of sunlight flooding through billowing curtains. The mood is uncertain. But, for an artist who had only recently started working in oils, the painting exhibits extraordinary sophistication in the way the objects are depicted in the light - and the sense of light occupying space.
Highlights from Contemporary African Art section include:
William Kentridge (South African, born 1955) Monument I
William Kentridge (born 1955) Monument 1 Estimate: £200,000 - 300,000
Kentridge’s blockbuster exhibition last year at the Royal Academy in London was a spectacular survey of the artist’s work which also showcased the range of media he uses in his practice. This image is taken from Kentridge's film 'Monument' (1990) which explores exploitation, passivity, responsibility, and power – and is closely modelled on Samuel Beckett's short play Catastrophe. The work in the sale, Monument I, captures the moment before a statue of a worker is unveiled by mine-owner Soho Ekstein, Kentridge’s omnipresent character. As the crowd is gathered awaiting the concealed lonely figure to be revealed, the work crystallises a moment of anticipation.
Marlene Dumas (b 1953) 'Billy Holiday' estimate £80,000 - 120,000
Marlene Dumas (South African / British born 1953)
Billie Holiday, 6 parts, 1994, ink on paper. Estimate: £80,000-120,000
El Anatsui (Ghanaian, born 1944)
Change Goes On signed and dated 'EL 1993-2020' carved, incised, scorched, and painted wood panels (in 54 pieces) Estimate: £120,000-180,000
El Anatsui’s work is known throughout the world for its language of an African aesthetic. His work is on the global stage and in major international collections such as Museum of Modern Art, New York, The National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
El Anatsui began his artistic training in Kumasi, where he was given a grounding in Western art traditions and practices. Wanting to connect with the arts of his own country, he began to visit the Kumasi National Cultural Centre on weekends. Here he was exposed to weavers, potters, cloth-printers and carvers, all working in indigenous methods.
The artist began to incorporate elements from these crafts into his own work, forging a distinctly Ghanaian aesthetic. This work employs the colours and geometric symbols traditionally used for Asante Adinkra cloth. The age-old Adinkra patterns are counter-posed by modern construction techniques. The planks of wood have been cut with a chainsaw and blackened with an acetylene torch. For the artist, the tearing of the saw through wood functioned as "a metaphor for the way in which the western powers had carved up and brutally divided the African continent amongst themselves, ripping through and destroying both local history and culture".
Ibrahim Mahama (Ghanaian b.1987)
A major installation piece by Ghanaian artist, Ibrahim Mahama, Untitled from 2013, has an estimate of £30,000-50,000 and comprises 11 draped coal sacks made from jute that hang down from the walls. The work was first exhibited in Pangaea: New Art from Africa to Latin America at the Saatchi Gallery in 2014. It is being offered from the Saatchi Collection.
Ibrahim Mahama’s monumental work, Untitled (2013) has an estimate of £30,000-50,000
Born in 1987 in Tamale, Ibrahim Mahama is one of the most exciting contemporary artists working in Africa today. Educated at Ghana’s prestigious Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (K.N.U.S.T.) with a degree in Painting and a Masters in Painting and Sculpture, Mahama had a work chosen for Ghana's first national pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. His work also featured at Documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel in 2017. Additionally, Mahama has had solo exhibitions at the White Cube gallery in London – most recently, Lazurus in 2021 - and has created major installation works at Kumasi Railway station. In July 2024, Mahama transformed the Barbican Arts Centre by enveloping the Brutalist concrete walls in 2,000 metres of woven cloth. The work, Purple Hibiscus, was a collaboration with hundreds of craftspeople from Mahama’s birthplace, Tamale in Ghana.
Made in Southeast Asia, Untitled from 2013 is created out of sacks imported by the Ghana Cocoa Boards to package cocoa beans for export. The used sacks are then repurposed to carry animal feed, coal, and charcoal around the country for domestic consumption. Roughly printed or drawn on the surface of the sacks are the companies and traders' names or transit locations by which they travel. For Mahama, the jute sacks are material metaphors for the global circulation of commodities that pass through Ghana and its associated socio-economic inequities. At Bonhams, the work has been installed with the supervision of the artist himself so that the 11 separate sheets are draped and ripple which contributes to a fluid motion.
Slawn (Nigerian, born 2000)
Slawn Untitled, 2020 (in 6 canvases) each canvas signed and dated 'SLAWN '20' and individually numbered out of 6 (verso) spray paint and acrylic marker on canvas Estimate: £10,000-15,000
In a career that has broken traditional artistic boundaries, Slawn (Olaolu Akeredolu-Ale) has carved out his own niche. A cultural icon and entrepreneur extending his practice beyond the canvas, Slawn collaborated with the late Virgil Abloh for Louis Vuitton, and designed the set and award for the 2023 Brit awards. In order to connect with the community, Slawn set up a café in East London which he turned into a cultural hub and where he displayed his art.
Untitled, (2020), (estimate £10,000 - 15,000), consists of six panels and is from the period that led to Slawn's rise to fame. Each canvas is different and yet links to the others to present a mural that conveys the urban culture of Nigeria and London. In an amalgamation of line paintings of shapes and cartoon-like figures, Slawn generates his works in both aerosol paint and thick marker pens. Slawn began his career by giving away is artworks at parties or as trophies in his occasional 'fight clubs' whereby studio visits led to fighting matches for art. "It came about from two people being in my studio and I said to them: 'If you don't want to buy [a painting], then you can fight for it."
Other highlights include
Esther Mahlangu (South African, born 1935) Deck 2 2016 79.5 x 20 x 7cm. Estimate 3,000-5,000
Esther Mahlangu (South African, born 1935) Deck 2 2016 estimate £3,000 - 5,000. This work was exhibited at the BMW Pavilion at Frieze in 2016.
Atta Kwami (Ghanaian, 1956-2021) Untitled (Pampaso) (unframed). Estimate 7,000-10,000
Two works by Atta Kwami (Ghanaian, 1956-2021) Untitled (Pampaso) (estimate: £7,000-10,000) and Of Tones Deep and Blue (estimate £6,000 - 8,000) are also in Modern and Contemporary African Art Sale. Born in Accra, Kwami’s geometrical compositions and broad brushstrokes bear a resemblance to the paintings seen on Northern Ghanaian shops, houses, signs and woven textiles.
Atta Kwami (Ghanaian, 1956-2021) Of Tones Deep and Blue. Estimate 6,000-8,000
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