Irma Stern Painting Sells for Staggering £2.4 Million
Irma Stern
South African artist Irma Stern acquired a reputation for wanderlust during the mid-twentieth century, painting her way through innumerable African countries after her first exhibition in Berlin in 1919. (Stern, born in Transvaal to German-Jewish immigrants, refused to show in Germany between 1933 and 1945, instead traveling through Zanzibar, Senegal and the Congo.) Her paintings and sculptures mostly depicted exotic faces and bodies, images that tantalized the Western art world.
And if the recent sale of her 1945 “Bahora Girl” for £2.4 million (US$3.78 million) by London’s Bonhams auction house is any indication, Stern can still cause quite a stir. The sale sets a world record auction price for South African art; some forecasters predict it might spark renewed interest in South African artists.
“Bahora Girl,” an oil on canvas, depicts a sultry-looking, young Zanzibari Indian slouched casually in her bedroom.
“Her mode of speech was so polite and well-formulated,” Stern once said of her subject, according to a Bonhams press release. “It was a lovely harmony in this young girl, slim and tall, with the gently movements of a well-bred race. Her eyes were like dark pools, swimming with the glance of tragedy curious in so young a face, yet so common in the eastern woman.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
