Brilliant art

An old school – An undiscovered gem: Gawie Cronje, South African landscape artist who lived in the Eastern Cape

I’m a big art lover and have blogged before some of our very best artists like Pierneef and Walter Battis, the creator of Fook Island, Bettie Cilliers-Barnard and Tretchikoff to name only a few. I must admit that until now, Gawie Cronje was really unknown to me. I found today babobski’s blog and was quite surprised to discover this piece of brilliant art.

The Brett Kebble art collection went on auction last week and raised R 54 million. Some artists’ paintings received record prices, which is quite amazing in this economic climate.

Yet, art experts have been saying for at least five years now that South African art is a good investment and should form part of a diversified portfolio.

Many people, when hearing about art and oil paintings tend to think about Van Gogh and Van Rijn. However, there are secondary art markets around the world and South Africa has a flourishing art market as well.

 Kebble’s collection included the big names in South African art. J.H. Pierneef, Alexis Preller, Irma Stern, Nita Spilhaus, Maud Sumner, Vladimir G. Tretchikoff, Jan Volschenk and Pieter Wenning were just some of the names Kebble had collected.

 One of the Irma Stern painting sold for R 5 013 000 at the auction, held in Johannesburg.

 His Pierneef sold for R 267 000 and a Jan Volschenk achieved a world record price of R 668 000.

 Not all of us have the resources of a Brett Kebble so how does one go about collecting art?

What could you buy with R 1 000 000?

 A good JH Pierneef or an Irma Stern if you lucky.

 What could I buy with R 100 000?

 Keep your eyes open for an Adriaan Boshoff or an Errol Boyley.  Boshoff is regarded as the finest South Afirican impressionist artist and a small Boshoff painting will cost around R 30 000 – R 35 000 at least.

Errol Boyely died in 2007 and his paintings are in demand.  The prices of his paintings seem to have settled down but will pick up again once the economy turns.

 What could I buy for R 10 000?

Click on the link for more reading and beautiful art on babobski’s blog.

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