Irma Stern

The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is South Africa. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are portrait, genre and still life. Places of work recorded in the authority are Berlin, Weimar and Cape Town. Work by Irma Stern is recorded in the collections of South African National Gallery, Irma Stern Museum, Ben Uri Gallery and Musée National d'Art Moderne.

• Name — Irma Stern • Birth Name — Irma Analize Stern • Born — 2 October 1894 • Birthplace — Schweizer-Reneke, Transvaal • Died — 23 August 1966 • Place of death — Cape Town, South Africa • Field — Painting

Stern was born in Schweizer-Reneke, a small town in the Transvaal, of German-Jewish parents. Her father was interned in a concentration camp by the British during the Second Boer War because of his pro-Boer leanings. Irma and her younger brother, Rudi, were thus taken to Cape Town by their mother. In 1901, the family returned to Germany and later would constantly travel between South Africa and Germany. This travel also influenced Irma's development as an artist. In 1913 Stern studied art in Germany at the Grand-Ducal Saxon Art School, Weimar, in 1914 at the Levin-Funcke Studio and notably from 1917 with Max Pechstein, a founder of the Novembergruppe. Stern was associated with the German Expressionist painters of this period. She held her first exhibition in Berlin in 1919. In 1920 Stern returned to Cape Town with her family, where she was first derided and dismissed as an artist before later becoming an established artist by the 1940s. In 1926 Stern married Johannes Prinz, her former tutor, who subsequently became professor of German at the University of Cape Town. They were divorced in 1934. Irma Stern travelled extensively in Europe and explored southern Africa, Zanzibar and the Congo region. These trips provided a wide range of subject matter for her paintings and gave her opportunities to acquire and assemble a collection of artifacts. Stern's intention was to travel extensively in her lifetime: in 1931 to Madeira, in 1937 and 1938 to Dakar, Senegal, 1939 and 1945 Zanzibar, the Congo region in 1942, 1946 and 1955, 1952 Madeira, 1952 Israel, 1955 Turkey, 1960 Spain and 1963 France. Stern also travelled extensively in South Africa, for example in 1926 to Swaziland and Pondoland, in 1933 to Namaqualand, in 1936 generally, and in 1941 to the Eastern Cape. Stern refused to either travel or exhibit in Germany during the period of the Nazi regime from 1933 to 1945. These expeditions resulted in a wealth of artistic creativity and energy as well as the publication of two illustrated journals: Congo, published in 1943 and Zanzibar in 1948.

• Illustration — Still life with African pot, Johans Borman Fine Art Gallery, Cape Town 1936 • Illustration — The Arab (1939)

Irma Stern is recorded as painter.