Irma Stern

In the art of Irma Stern, motifs from her South African homeland meet the expressionism of the Brücke artists. In the interwar period she was celebrated in Berlin for her “exotic” paintings, and later became a prominent artist in South Africa. This richly illustrated volume focuses on her highly expressive portraits and addresses questions regarding the contexts in which the works were created and how they are seen today.

The German–South African artist Irma Stern (1894–1966) was a well-known figure in the Berlin art scene after the First World War, until she was forced to leave Germany forever in 1933 due to Nazi persecution of the Jews. While marginalized as a woman and threatened by antisemitism, she was also a beneficiary of South Africa’s apartheid regime. Her complex body of work was shaped both by emancipation and by cultural appropriation.