IRMA STERN: EXPRESSIONIST PAINTER

by

Bernard Sachs

Over the fifty years that Irma Stern has been painting and exhibiting she has been s controversial figure. But there are few who will disagree that she is one of the most important painters that this country has produced. No other South African artist has made such an impression on the painting world beyond our borders. Her list of successes and exhibitions is a very comprehensive one indeed.

Her first exhibition here, in Cape Town in 1920, caused a veritable uproar, and the police were called in to deal with the nudes being shown. But there was no law under which they could act and nothing happened. Cape Town’s artistic world was riven, with her detractors easily predominating. Crowds of visitors expressed amazement, amusement, and even indignation, at the unaccustomed treatment of the South African scene. A typically acid comment came from the Cape Times:

             At Messrs. Ashby’s Galleries Miss Stern has exhibited a series
             of pictures called by her ‘Modern Art.’ A first visit causes
             undoubted amusement, but on subsequent inspection, this
             feeling vanishes, to be replaced by frank disgust at the general
             nastiness of the work. One may be conversant and even
             sympathetic with modern art methods, but no serious
             attention need be paid to this attempt to startle the
             susceptibilities of Cape Town art lovers.

It took her something like ten years to emerge from the sedulous derogation that greeted her every exhibition.

Irma Stern sat heavy, like a feminine Buddha, at the Adler Fielding Galleries when I interviewed her. The obese are usually mentally sluggish, and one associates them with all-round lassitude. Not so Irma. She is mentally alert, and she has the temperament of a prima donna. We started off on the wrong foot, and she as much as told me I didn’t know my business. I began to bridle. But I recalled that some tears back I had met her at the Kupers on one of their Sabbath siestas and that she was as witty and entertaining as you make them. So she relented and we soon moved into more tranquil waters.

Irma is such a dedicated artist, that it was pointless to discuss matters not related to her life’s work. So I asked her what the main influences were in her evolution. The answer was spontaneous: Africa. And she went on to say that every European artist of note had drawn heavily from the African Continent. Picasso learned greatly from Native Art, and also Jacob Epstein, whose Adam is a typical derivation from this source.

“But I am losing my African roots,” she suddenly said, with a note of wistfulness in her voice.

“Why?” I asked.

And then she explained that she had no longer the same sympathy for its people. She paused for a moment, and plunged right into the murkiness of Central African politics. “What sympathy can I have for those who are murdering my people?” she asked. By “people” she meant white people.

And then she spoke nostalgically of the days gone by, when during a stay in the Congo she would look out of a window and watch a black labourer cleaning the stairs. With his heavy body he would get up and move on to the next place, and repeat the performance. There was a joy in labour, a love for the occupation---“which has now given way to a murderous rebelliousness.” The way she spoke, this labourer, busy with his daily chores, was a moment in eternity. That’s what the perception of the artist does for you. But away from the world of Art, in this world of the Congo chaos, it was too bad. The beneficence of colonialism had dispersed like the morning dew, and the Congolese who had washed the stairs is now probably a deputy of some sort or a general. That is how Irma saw it. And not even a Goya could paint the nightmare that is the Congo of today. But the Congolese are having their fun. They don’t want colonialism, and they just don’t care if they are not painted.

“My ties with them have been broken,” sighed Irma.

“My emotional attitude towards them has changed. I knew the Congo well. I am disturbed by what’s going on there.” So are many others, and for different reasons.

“What has replaced Africa in your artistic life?” I next asked.

“To some extent, Mexico. But mostly Spain,” she said.

I could see that the colour and flamboyance of Spain was in line with much of what she had done in the way of painting. But she gave another interesting explanation of her turning to Spain for inspiration: She could trace her family right back to the pre-Inquisition days, when they had lived in Toledo. The family had fled to Holland. Today there were still remnants in the neighborhood of Hanover, not far from the border of Holland.

Another Spanish influence in her life is Picasso, whom she regards as the most dynamic and creative force in this age. I asked her how it was that Spain had given rise to the greatest artist of the age.

“It’s an old country and an old people,” was her explanation. It’s as good as any.

In her view, Picasso and Klee are the only two original painters for the last fifty years. It did not mean that the others were copying them. It was just that they had made a sort of qualitative leap into new artistic territory, and as a result had opened up new vistas for other artists to utilise in their own way.

We next discussed Jewish influence in art. Mainly, according to Irma, their contribution was to give a cosmopolitan sweep to painting, away from the parochial. This she regarded as a good influence---“They are prepared to look the world in the face and transcend the narrow and the regional. Travel through Africa, and every man and woman there think their hut is the centre of the world. The Jews have helped to wash this egocentrism out with their universality of outlook.”

She was greatly impressed with the work of Jacob Epstein and Chagall. The Jewish influence was very strong in Epstein. She did not rate his portraits highly---“They are too naturalistic.” She had met him on several occasions and had found him to be an unassuming, natural, kind-hearted person---“He was often unshaven, and his shirt was torn in several places. But they treated him like royalty in the snob galleries.” She had also met Chagall in Venice. She preferred his earlier work with its Jewish symbols. He was an amiable man and loved everybody.

She had not been to Israel, and had not exhibited there, although she had exhibited at some of the leading galleries in the world. She had donated a picture to the church of Father Elias, a Cape Town Jewish doctor who had become a Carmelite monk and is now in Israel. She regards him as a good man, and is not concerned with the religious issues surrounding him. There were a few more pictures of hers in Israel. Mrs. Herman of Cape Town had presented one to the Bezalel Museum, and so had the Junior Durban Chamber of Commerce. It is in the permanent collection in Nathanya. Of the Israeli painters, she is most acquainted with the work of Rubin, whose painting of a cock had impressed her. The French influence was strong---as it is with many Israel painters.

Turning to South Africa, she expressed the view that the rich people could do a great deal more to stimulate art here by buying murals, mosaics and paintings. The Government could also do more.

“How do you become an artist?” I next asked her.

“Work from morning to night, plus natural ability,” was her swift reply. “And it is also essential to know what to throw out.”

And now for something of the framework of her life.

Born in Schweizer-Reneke, Transvaal, she went with her parents to Europe on the outbreak of the Boer War and was sent to school in Berlin. She returned to South Africa whilst still a child having already acquired a serious interest in art. She was on a visit to Germany in 1914 and was obliged to remain there during the First World War. There she availed herself of the excellent opportunities offered for the study of painting. She enrolled as a student at the Studio Levin-Funke in Berlin, and subsequently studied in Weimar at the Academy and the Bauhaus. At that period the modern movement in art was Expressionism. It was characterized in painting by bold treatment and strong colour, qualities which accorded well with Miss Stern’s temperament. She developed her style under the influence of the new movement, being helped and encouraged by a painter friend who was himself a noted leader of Expressionism in Germany---Max Pechstein. Her first exhibition of collected work was held at the Gallery Gurlit in Berlin, and in the same year, 1919, she exhibited with the Neue Sezession Group. She returned to South Africa towards the end of the year and held a “one man” exhibition of her paintings in Cape Town, to which I have already made reference. Miss Stern was not discouraged. Six years later she exhibited modern art for the first time in Johannesburg and Bloemfontein. In the intervening years she had been able to hold four more exhibitions in Cape Town and was beginning to overcome popular prejudice. She painted familiar scenes with vigour and originality and went far afield in the search for variety and colour: to the most interesting and picturesque countries of Europe and to the four corners of Africa: to Zanzibar, Tunis, Dakar, the Congo and the Native territories. Meanwhile she exhibited in numerous centres in South Africa and in all the principal cities of Europe: London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Breslau, Vienna and other great centres of art. By 1956 she had held nearly a hundred exhibitions and had met with much success. Her work has been exhibited at a number of invited one-man shows: Berlin (3). Rotterdam, Linz, Salzburg and has also been shown at numerous group exhibitions in many parts of the world including the Biennales of Venice and Sau Paolo. She was awarded a Prix d’Honneur at the International Exhibition at Bordeaux in 1927.

In 1960 she won the Guggenheimer Award for South Africa in the International Competition with a painting that was exhibited in Paris and New York. Many of her works are in private collections, including those of the Queen Mother of England, the late Sir William Clarke, the late Sir Ernest Oppenheimer and Sir Alfred Beit.

Painting is the major influence in Irma’s life, but she is human with it. She is not ashamed to admit that cooking is an important preoccupation with her. She has a fine protégé in Charlie, who comes from Zanzibar, and has been with the Stern household for all the thirty-six years she has lived at her Cape home. Yes, Charlie has served his exotic food to the highest dignitaries of the land, including Governor-Generals.

As is to be expected, her home is a treasure-house of beautiful antiques and objets d’art from all parts of the world---Gercian terracotta, Iberian bronzes, Etruscan and Phoenecian carvings, Dürer wood engravings, Mexican masks, Coptic weavings, Chinese pottery, early Christian paintings, Gothic carvings of the Saints, Spanish rustic plates, elaborately carved kists from India, pagan Swiss masks which leer at one awesomely, a wonderful set of ancient carvings from the Congo and some beautiful early English and Flemish furniture.

[1960]

From: Bernard Sachs, Personalities and Places (Second Series), The Dial Press, Johannesburg, 1965.