Irma Stern
It is among the many ironies of colonialism that a European artist might find a reflection of spiritual purity in the very people it oppressed, that they might find a vision of utopia in a place so often described as uncivilised and savage. Such was Stern's romantic relationship to all things ‘native’ and ‘tribal’, to which paintings such as Swazi Women Musicians attest. “Searching, I roamed the world – to arrive at the origin,” Stern wrote with telegraphic phrasing, “– at beauty – at truth – away from the lies of everyday – and my longing was burning hot – then the darkness opened up and I stood at the source of the Beginning – Paradise.”
b.1894, Schweizer-Reneke; d.1966, Cape Town
Throughout her life, Irma Stern pursued visions of the exotic. She travelled widely in both Europe and Africa and found in the latter reflections of a timeless idyll. Stern was particularly drawn to the otherness of the people she encountered, to – as she wrote – “the hidden depths of the primitive and childlike yet rich soul of the native.” Unconcerned with the particularity of individuals, her paintings of African figures are seldom portraits but rather ethnographic imaginings (to this end, these sitters are seldom ever named). All this considered, there remains a compelling complexity to her paintings. An artist seduced by colour and rhythm, she in turn seduces the viewer. There is a material richness to Stern’s canvas, a sensual pleasure to her impasto paint. While her words more often revealed her colonial sentiments and a profound lack of insight into the lives of others, in paint, she was redeemed. Stern can perhaps be forgiven for being of her time and, like so many modernists, excused her primitivism. Beauty, above all, was what Stern sought to express, and the lasting influence of her paintings is a testament to her aesthetic achievements. She remains a commanding presence in the South African art world, in death as she was in life.