Erik Laubscher selected by Stephan Welz and Co

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

This morning, I am very excited. I visited such a site of an auction house as I like them (and such as all of them should be!): Many details in the press releases, ease of finding the strengths of future sales and the results of past sales. For my daily article, I need nothing more!

This is Stephan Welz and Company, which operates in association with Sotheby's in South Africa at Johannesburg and Cape Town.

For this first detailed visit to their site, I decided to follow their choice, and to discuss the artwork they show on the top of their main page. It is an oil on canvas by Erik Laubscher, Lot 327 for sale in Cape Town on 24 and 25 February.

It is a work from his youth. The artist was 25 years old when he painted it in 1952. This is a still life with a mandolin, a musical score and fruits, 65x80 cm. The auction house is right in defining it as a post-Cubist reminiscence of Braque. The artist has also been strongly influenced by Léger (he had been a pupil of him). The objects are juxtaposed in bold colors in the composition of the image, without the use of perspective.

Regardless of whether Laubscher is absent from the database of Bonhams, the specialist in Europe for art sales of South Africa. No matter if there is only four minor works by him in Artvalue works. Our goal is to discover what we did not know, isn't it?

The painting is estimated 200 KR, or about 15 K €.

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

I was right when I trusted more the excitement of the auction house than its estimates. The Laubscher painting was sold 1 MR excluding fees.

Stephan Welz and Co announced that it is the highest price recorded at auction in South Africa for a living artist.

[Patsy Bernstein]

Great to hear, I own a beautiful still life oil painting on canvas by Erik Laubscher
dated 1952.
Patsy Bernstein
Vancouver, Canada.