When an auctioneer announces the price of a painting, you immediately want to know what is actually behind it. Who painted it, where it has been all these years and why so many people wanted to buy it 👀
I found three works by South African artists that each have their own story. And yes, we will look at the prices too.
🚂 Playing draughts on the train to work
In the small painting Game of Draughts in a Crowd, artist Gerard Sekoto depicted people gathered around a game of draughts inside a train carriage.
Sekoto painted it around the early 1940s, when he was living in Sophiatown in Johannesburg. Before that, he had worked as a teacher and later moved to the city to pursue art.
The painting remained for a long time in the private collection of Patricia Fine, a former mayor of Cape Town. In 2026, it sold at auction in Cape Town for R2,630,625. According to Strauss & Co, the winning buyer placed the bid online after 25 bids.
View the painting and lot description.
🎬 A work created for a film screening
At first glance, William Kentridge’s 9 Films, Drawings for Projection might look like an ordinary poster. But the particular copy sold at auction has its own story.
In 2004, Kentridge created the work for the first complete screening in South Africa of his series of animated films. The screenings took place at the Old Fort on Constitution Hill in Johannesburg. The site was once a prison where political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, were held.
The artist worked with charcoal drawings, erasing and changing the images between frames. A signed print from an edition of 50 was sold in Cape Town in September 2026 for R462,100.
View the work in the catalogue.
👀 A painting that returned to auction decades later
Irma Stern’s Children Reading the Koran is connected to her trip to Zanzibar in 1939. The following year, the artist exhibited the work in Cape Town.
At the time, the painting was listed for 45 guineas. In 2023, it sold at Strauss & Co in Cape Town for R22,303,125 and, at that point, set an auction record for the sale of an artwork on the African continent.
I like thinking about everything that happened between those two moments. The painting passed through exhibitions and private collections before eventually appearing in front of an auction audience once again.
Read the story and see the sale price.
💜 Why the history of an artwork matters
Behind a painting there may be an artist’s journey, the life of an entire city or the story of the person who once bought it.
That is why collectors care not only about the artwork itself, but also about its provenance, exhibition history and previous owners.
The prices in this article refer to past auctions and include the buyer’s premium and VAT. They do not mean that the works are currently for sale or available to view.
And if you want to see art in person, take a look at our selection “Where to Go for Art in Cape Town and Nearby”.
Officially, I'm an editor of city media around the world. But really, I'm just that traveling frog who chases adventures, connects people, and discovers new ways to make life a little more meaningful, exciting, and full of wonder every day
