'Fisherman, Madeira'
Herkunft : [Timeline chronologique]
1975-03-03 | Sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet South Africa, Johannesburg, 3 March 1975, lot 117
[Propriété non datée]
- Acquired directly from the artist
- A private collection
Exhibited : Pretoria, Pretoria Art Museum, Choice of the Month, April, 1979.
Literature : Karel Schoeman, Irma Stern: the early years, 1894-1933, (Cape Town, 1994), illustrated p.100.
Anmerkung : Stern executed this painting during a three month visit to Madeira in 1931. This was a difficult period in the artist's life; anti-semitism was on the rise in her native Germany, and her marriage to Johannes Prinz was on the verge of collapse. Far from elevating her depressed spirits, Madeira only served to remind Stern of an earlier lost love, the Portuguese novelist Hippolyto Raposo. Shortly after arriving on the island, she suffered a nervous breakdown. Many of Stern's Madeiran paintings reflect her anguished mental state. As art historian Marion Arnold notes: "[with] harsh, pure colour and turbulent rhythm she paints...victims of society with whom she could identify". The fisherman of the present lot is no exception; his careworn expression and dark circled eyes convey an exhaustion that is not merely physical. When Stern exhibited her Madeira works in Cape Town in 1935, Edward Roworth commented on the "sinister" colours and "hectic, feverish atmosphere" (Cape Times, 1935). In spite of the "fantastic agonies" she suffered, Stern was incredibly prolific in Madeira. She later stated she only left the island as she needed a rest from "the intensive work" she had been doing (Cape Times, 1932). 'Fisherman, Madeira' has received critical acclaim since its creation. In a letter to the owner in 1979, the director of Pretoria Art Museum, A.J. Werth, referred to the painting as one of Stern's "finest oils", and when the work was last auctioned in 1975 it achieved the highest price of the sale. Stern made a number of preparatory sketches of such fishermen, including Sketchbook Page Fisherman, 1931, which is in the collection of the Irma Stern Museum (illustrated in Albert 2006, fig. 6a). Bibliography Karel Schoeman, Irma Stern: the early years, 1894-1933. (Cape Town, 1994), p.80. Marion Arnold, Irma Stern: A Feast for the Eye. (Cape Town, 1950), p.20. S. Albert (ed.) Journeys to the Interior: Unseen works by Irma Stern 1929-1939, (Cape Town, 2006).
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