For as long as I have studied art history, Irma Stern has been part of my consciousness; yet I have never spoken or written about her. I have no explanation for this. On the one hand this task is made all the more daunting by the absence of any previous personal focus and output regarding her work; on the other hand I could be objective, stand outside the debate and at times be bemused by the tensions that are revealed in writings about her and the academic jostling to have the final word, or offer the ultimate interpretation.
That the possibility of a finite, all-encompassing explication of Stern’s oeuvre does not exist is clear from the range and diversity of the essays in the catalogue Irma Stern, produced by Standard Bank Gallery. And this exhibition, with its focus on the self and the other, poses new questions: Why do Stern and her work still generate so much interest nearly 40 years after her death? Why has her reputation never succumbed to the dictates of fashion and the market? What can she teach us about identity and hybridity in post-apartheid South Africa? Can comparisons be drawn between her career and the careers of a new generation of artists operating in an increasingly globalised world?
Some of the answers can be found in the many texts that have been written about Stern and that are raised by curator Wilhelm van Rensburg and his co-authors — the complexity of her self, her life, her journeys, her interests and her art, defies a single, fixed perspective and continues to invite analysis. If one comes from a modernist viewpoint she offers much to talk about — the unusual confluence of line and painterliness, the fecundity of the colour and the paint itself, the marks, the intense articulation of every centimetre of the surface (I know this is old-fashioned, but Stern’s paintings demand formalist attention).
From the beginning of her career, her work and her presence were neither passive nor neutral. She was famous for her comments on and disdain for the colonial visual culture she found in Cape Town in the 1920s. Her travels, her writings, her superb and eclectic private collection, her style and themes offer rich resources for colonial and, more recently, feminist and post-colonial discourse, as well as the current obsession with the politics of representation. No wonder she can not and will not be forgotten.
But all this in itself may not have kept our attention and our admiration, then and now, had it not been for the sheer depth of her talent, the internal and external conflict that she knew and the inclusions and exclusions that characterised her life. The “other” fascinated Stern but she was, herself, unconventional. She grew up and matured on two continents and in two different worlds, in urban and rural areas. As Irene Below puts it in the catalogue: “In Africa she was the German immigrant child in the rural Transvaal province, in Europe, the schoolgirl from Jewish culturally oriented circles, living mostly in the regimented Berlin of the Kaiser Wilhelm era, but frequently also with her grandparents in the small town of Einbeck.” For the rest of her life she would seek herself in others and discover the other in the self. This inner journey compelled her to travel far and wide, to sacrifice and to suffer physical and emotional deprivation.
Stern was “other” through the circumstances of her birth, through the choices she made and did not make and as a consequence of her personality. She was her own person — she spoke, wrote and painted her truth. That we may agree or disagree with her truth and the expression thereof is not relevant. The kind of political correctness into which we have slid unquestioningly, would have been incomprehensible to her. Note the words used to describe her (only some of them): combative, controversial, domineering, eccentric, iconoclastic, rebellious. The nature of society is to marginalise, even ostracise those who do not fit into the prevailing norms, let alone a woman with a talent as prodigious and a spirit as indomitable as hers. Ambivalent about her Jewishness, she was detribalised in the broadest sense of the word.
Detribalised yet deeply rooted in the continent of her birth: “During the years I spent in Europe studying there was always the one idea in my mind — back to Africa, the country of my birth, the land of sunshine, of radiant colours, where the fruit grows so plentifully and the flowers seem to reach the summit of all joy.”
Her roots nourished her, but she could go beyond them and tap into a universe of profound emotions and inspiration — one that is beyond the physical. This is part of what compels us to look and look again — beyond the painterliness and exoticism, the exuberance of mark and colour. To plummet to the depths of her passion and identification with her subjects. Stern represented herself in letters, her journal and in articles and interviews; it is telling that she did not create self-portraits.
What can Irma Stern’s work and example mean to us in this globalised undefined space beyond post-modernism in which we find ourselves? She was among the very best of her time — famous, simultaneously much derided and admired; from the European perspective, as a woman living mostly on the African continent, she was on the periphery (Below points out that by 1986 the representation of women in the Bielefeld collection stood at only 5% and I imagine it is not much different in other European collections). In South Africa she was too foreign, too avant-garde, and too powerful. Nowhere did she fit into any comfortable frameworks. But, with some other formidable women contemporaries, she secured a leading position for South African women artists and successive generations owe her a debt of gratitude.
There is a French expression, the more things change, the more they stay the same. For over a decade South Africa has been in the spotlight and foremost artists no longer operate from the margins. But we have not escaped the Western fascination with and search for the exotic and authentic other — it is simply couched in more sophisticated terminology. We are, however, wiser and able to combat and resist as we gain in strength and power, as we get to know ourselves through others and others through ourselves.
We no longer need to genuflect to Europe. When we hosted the Marc Chagall exhibition at Iziko: South African National Gallery in 2000, in collaboration with Standard Bank and the French Institute of South Africa, we had a huge number of visitors. Interest in the major William Kentridge show last year was much greater. This exhibition honours a great South African artist.
It is timeous and appropriate in many ways, to remind us what good painting is all about (and I am particularly thrilled by Stern’s paintings after what seemed to me the final death blow to painting at the Venice Biennale this year), to encourage us to understand and celebrate our own hybridity and otherness, here and in the wider world and to cherish her legacy of art, writings, her collection and her home.
The Irma Stern Museum is a lasting monument to her life and work and I recently — on 16 September — had the privilege of attending Neville Dubow’s 70th birthday party there. A celebration that she would have relished. I found a quiet moment to stand on the threshold of her studio, to try to imagine her larger-than-life, charismatic presence and to marvel at this great gift of a human being that was bestowed upon the world. The biographical room installed here is an invaluable aspect of this exhibition — do not miss it.
Interest in her work is undiminished and the team responsible for this superb exhibition and catalogue deserve our gratitude and praise. Thank you for listening to my own expression of a journey through Irma Stern’s life and work, a journey that has confirmed my enduring admiration and profound esteem for a great artist.
Marilyn Martin is the director of art collections for Iziko Museums of Cape Town.
The details:
Expressions of a Journey is a comprehensive exhibition of Irma Stern’s work including paintings, prints, sculpture and personal journals from 1894 to 1966. The exhibition at the Standard Bank Gallery on the corner of Simmonds and Frederick streets, Johannesburg, runs until November 29. For more information contact Susan Isaac on Tel: (011) 636 4231 or visit their website: www.sbgallery.co.za