For decades, Cape Town collector Georgina Jaffee has quietly assembled one of the most conceptually rigorous collections of pan-African contemporary art in private hands. Her guiding theme? Hair — as subject, as material, and as metaphor.
Now, 41 works from her extraordinary collection will go under the hammer at Strauss & Co on 21 February 2026, following an exhibition at the auction house’s Woodstock gallery in Cape Town. Titled Hair Matters: A Selection of Works from the Georgina Jaffee Collection, the sale spans painting, photography, sculpture, textile, and installation, bringing together artists from Angola to Zimbabwe, Benin to the United States.
“Rather than responding to the market, this collection is grounded in lived experience and sustained dialogue,” says Kirstie Pietersen, Head of Sale at Strauss & Co. “It demonstrates how an intimate subject can open onto wider questions of power, race, gender, and resistance.”
Georgina’s approach is neither trend-driven nor detached. It emerges from her personal relationship with hair as a marker of identity — and the works themselves reflect that intimacy. Highlights include Ifeoma U. Anyaeji’s A No M’eba, Ma Na Anoho Mu Eba, an installation of braided plastic bags arranged with a wooden chair (estimate R400 000 – 600 000), and Dominique Zinkpè’s Petite Princesse (R150 000 – 200 000), a sculpture of Ìbejì votive figures fused into a single crowned form.
Historical depth anchors the contemporary. Works by 1970s Black Consciousness artist Fikile Magadlela and Drum photographer Bob Gosani sit alongside pieces by Tracey Rose, Sethembile Msezane, Hank Willis Thomas and Sabelo Mlangeni.
A Living Dialogue
As part of its Curatorial Voices initiative, Strauss & Co has commissioned essays from four curators. Natasha Becker, curator of African Art at the de Young Museum, San Francisco, writes that hair is “a material that carries memory, a subject that invites scrutiny, an aesthetic that shapes how people see themselves and are seen”. She is joined by recent graduates Jared Leite, Vida Madighi-Oghu and Sihle Motsa, whose perspectives were shaped by the Fallist student movement of 2015–2016, when hair became a fiercely contested symbol of identity and resistance.
“All four curators bring perspectives that activate hair as a living, evolving dialogue,” Kirstie adds.
The sale forms part of a broader February programme at Strauss & Co, including Woven Legacies: Fibre & Form, guest-curated by textile collector Michael Heuermann. Three public talks will also be held at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair on 20 February.
Taken together, the works in Hair Matters do not simply illustrate a theme. They argue for hair’s place in art history — not as ornament, but as archive, politics, and enduring form.
On the occasion of the preview and auction Hair Matters: A Selection of Works from the Georgina Jaffee Collection, Strauss & Co is hosting a Hair Drive in partnership with Partners Hair and CANSA (Cancer Association of South Africa) in a bold show of solidarity for cancer patients who lose their hair during treatment and to raise funds for CANSA’s care and support programmes.
Sunday, 15 February 2026 | 10am – 4pm at Strauss & Co, 2nd floor Brickfield Canvas, 35 Brickfield Road, Woodstock.
