518 - Irma Stern (1894, Schweizer-Reneke, South Africa – Cape Town, South Africa, 1966)

Irma Stern (1894, Schweizer-Reneke, South Africa – Cape Town, South Africa, 1966) Still Life with Hibiscus, Trumpet Flowers, and Fruit Oil on canvas. 1929. Approx. 58 x 44 cm. Signed and dated upper left. • Stern was a student and friend of Max Pechstein and a founding member of the November Group, a bridge between German Expressionism and South African Modernism • The painting was created in 1929 at the beginning of her famous still life series at “The Firs” in Cape Town, where the Irma Stern Museum was housed until 2025 • This work was part of the major Irma Stern retrospective at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, which played a key role in the artist’s rediscovery Irma Stern is one of the most significant female painters of South African modernism and is, at the same time, deeply rooted in the art of German Expressionism. Born in 1894 in Schweizer-Reneke to a German family, she spent her youth moving back and forth between South Africa and Germany. From 1913 to 1920, she studied in Weimar and Berlin, where she met Max Pechstein in 1917; he became her mentor and friend. In 1919, he arranged her first exhibition at the Fritz Gurlitt Gallery in Berlin. Stern exhibited at the Freie Secession and was one of the founding members of the November Group. In 1920, she returned to Cape Town but maintained close ties to Germany and exhibited in Berlin’s most important galleries—until the National Socialists’ rise to power in 1933 made it impossible for the Jewish artist to return to Germany. The Cape Town public initially met her expressive paintings with a lack of understanding, whereas in Germany she was celebrated. When she moved into her home, “The Firs,” in the Rosebank neighborhood of Cape Town in 1927—which would become the Irma Stern Museum in 2025—she began a series of still lifes. In these works, inspired by Pechstein and the paintings of Paul Cézanne, she developed her own artistic style. Flowers became a recurring theme in her life and work. The floral still life from 1929 showcases this style in all its power. Against a deep blue, cloud-like background, a lush bouquet of bright red blossoms, orange trumpet-shaped flowers, and delicate pink umbels unfolds, interwoven with sweeping, reddish tendrils. In the foreground, fruit lies on a bowl, echoing the warm tones of the bouquet. With impasto, energetic brushstrokes, Stern places the colors side by side and allows the arrangement to spill beyond the edges of the painting. It is precisely in works like these that the hallmarks of Stern’s art come together: the color-intensive language of Expressionism, which she encountered in Berlin, and the abundance of South African nature, which she witnessed daily in her garden in Rosebank. Until her death in 1966, the floral still life remained one of her central themes, and thus the 1929 work marks the beginning of one of the artist’s most beautiful series. Stern gained international recognition even during her lifetime: in 1950, 1952, 1954, and 1958, she represented South Africa at the Venice Biennale. Recent exhibitions demonstrate just how relevant her work remains today: in 1996–97, the Kunsthalle Bielefeld honored the artist with a major retrospective—which also featured this painting—and which played a key role in her rediscovery. In 2024, one of her works will be on view in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale, and in 2025, the Brücke Museum in Berlin will dedicate a major solo exhibition to her titled “Irma Stern: A Modern Artist Between Berlin and Cape Town.” Exhibition: Irma Stern and Expressionism. Africa and Europe. Paintings and Drawings through 1945, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, 1996/97, cat. no. 14, ill. p. 68. Provenance: Estate of the sculptor and artist Katharina Heise (1891–1964), a friend of Irma Stern; Private collection, Saxony-Anhalt, acquired from the aforementioned; Collection, Rhineland, since 2020. Taxation: subject to regular taxation (VAT: Regular Taxation).