The Goodman Gallery's 2011 auction, in conjunction with the anti-crime organisation SHOUT For a Safer South Africa, a beneficiary of funds from 18 of the 134 lots, was held on Sunday 14 August. Conducted by Ruarc Peffers, the auction yielded mixed results, with many lower- to mid-level lots closing well above the reserve prices, while some of the top-end lots netted prices below their high estimates. Nonetheless, the sale netted well in excess of R4.5m in total sales. Current Goodman Gallery owner Liza Essers and her staff were kept busy, with numerous lots eliciting telephonic bids, apparently from as far afield as France.

The event, largely a sell-off of stock purchased with the gallery group from previous owner Linda Givon in 2008, saw a broad range of works come under the hammer. Major works were largely absent, and punters mostly had to make do with smaller works and multiples, but the auction generated excitement by bringing together five decades' of work by significant South African artists, and a couple of big-name internationals as well. Especially well-represented were Rorke's Drift and Polly Street printmakers, and some of the more hotly-contested items were prints by Cyrian Shilakoe, John Muafangejo and Lucky Sibiya. Titans of South African modern art Cecil Skotnes, Walter Battiss and Sidney Kumalo formed the backbone of the auction, along with major resistance artists Durant Sihlali, Kagiso 'Pat' Matloua, Norman Catherine and David Koloane.

Contemporary South African art also put in a decent showing, with recent works by Tracey Rose, Lisa Brice, Mikhael Subotzky, Hasan and Husain Essop, Sabelo Mlangeni and Diane Victor generating interest. (Interestingly, a digital photomantage by Jane Alexander titled Harbinger in Correctional Uniform, Lost Marsh [edition of 60], originally sold by Editions for ArtThrob for R6000 in 2007, sold on the auction for R12 000.)

However, prime positions in the evening's proceedings were held by works by Robert Hodgins, Kendell Geers and, of course, the ubiquitous William Kentridge, the latter having a total of nine works up for auction (six works by Norman Catherine came up for sale, while there were four each by Penny Siopis and Deborah Bell). A smallish oil Totem by Hodgins from 2008 fetched R260 000, R100 000 up on its reserve, while a multiple-process print by the same jumped quickly from its opening bid of R9000 to R22 000.

A set of seven photogravures with drypoint by Kentridge, titled Zeno Writing, saw a more modest bid escalation, with the opening bid of R180 000 only being contested twice and the lot selling for R200 000, half of the high estimate of R400 000 published by the gallery before the event. A hand-coloured etching of an iris by the same fared somewhat better, moving swiftly from an opening bid of R240 000 to a sale at R280 000, the second-highest price achieved at the event. Yet this was still below the high estimate of R395 000.

A mixed media work by Geers from his 'photocopy' period in the early 90s also failed to scale the projected heights, selling for R140 000, again significantly below the gallery's high estimate of R300 000.

Lot 134 was, of course, the most eagerly-anticipated sale, Kentridge's original charcoal and poster paint Drawing for the Refusal of Time (2011). Yet again, though its high estimate proved elusive, the work sold to a telephone bidder at R850 000, well below the projected R1.4m. Though Peffers dutifully talked up the work as a 'major Kentridge' and a 'key work' in the artist's latest project, the general feeling was that it is not of a level with Kentridge's career-defining one-offs; one onlooker stage-whispered to me, 'Sure, it's a Kentridge, but do you like the image? Come on!'

Kentridge proved the most lucrative artist represented at the auction, with sales of his work totalling R1.582m. Hodgins came in second at R289 000, while Sam Nhlengethwa tipped the R200 000 mark.