Still Life with Hibiscus, Trumpet Flowers and Fruit Irma Stern

• Stern was a pupil and friend of Max Pechstein and a founding member of the November Group, a bridge between German Expressionism and South African modernism • The work was created in 1929 at the start of her famous series of still lifes 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 ranks among 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 travelling between South Africa and Germany. From 1913 to 1920 she studied in Weimar and Berlin, where, in 1917, she met Max Pechstein, who 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 with Germany and exhibited in Berlin’s leading 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 painting with a lack of understanding, whereas in Germany she was celebrated. When she moved into her house ‘The Firs’ in the Rosebank district of Cape Town in 1927 – which was to become the Irma Stern Museum in 2025 – she began a whole series of still lifes. In these, inspired by Pechstein and the paintings of Paul Cézanne, she found 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 colours side by side and allows the arrangement to spill over the edges of the picture. It is precisely in works such as these that the hallmarks of Stern’s art come together: the colour-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. Right up until her death in 1966, the floral still life remained one of her central themes, and so this 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 honoured the artist with a major retrospective, which also featured this painting and played a key role in her rediscovery. In 2024, one of her works will be on display in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale, and in 2025 the Brücke Museum in Berlin will dedicate a major solo exhibition to her, entitled ‘Irma Stern: A Modern Artist between Berlin and Cape Town’. | 1894 Schweizer-Reneke/Südafrika – Kapstadt/Südafrika 1966 | Moderne Kunst | Gemälde | Nummer: 26x2569 | Provenance: Nachlass der Bildhauerin und Künstlerin Katharina Heise (1891–1964), einer Freundin von Irma Stern; Privatsammlung, Sachsen-Anhalt, von Vorgenanntem erhalten; Sammlung, Rheinland, seit 2020.

Estimación:100.000€

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