Irma Stern (South African, 1894-1966)Still Life
signed and dated 'Irma Stern/ 1936' (lower right)
oil on canvas
59 x 48.5cm (23 1/4 x 19 1/8in).注脚Provenance
Acquired by a private collector, circa 1960s.
By direct descent.

Irma Stern's love of the natural world found full expression in her garden at The Firs in Cape Town. Here she cultivated a wide variety of flowers including geraniums, daisies, roses, petunias and fuchsias. Each day she would gather blooms from the garden to sketch in her studio. These still life paintings are often impressive in scale and executed in bold, gestural strokes that exude a vital dynamism rarely found in the genre. These flowers pulse and vibrate with life, barely contained by the edges of the canvas.

Stern's still life paintings are widely considered to be her most experimental in terms of composition and form. The multiple perspectives defy the two-dimensionality of the medium, and the vigorous brushstrokes celebrate the act of painting as much as, if not more than, the subject matter.

In 1937, the celebrated British artist, Jacob Epstein, praised Stern's ability to capture the texture and colour of flowers:

"Do you know that nobody living can paint flowers better than you...Renoir's roses...look like paper against your flowers."

Bibliography
H. Smuts, At Home with Irma Stern, (Cape Town, 2007), pp.34-35.