Irma Stern (South African, 1894-1966) Young Pondo Man (Framed)
Procedencia : [Timeline chronologique]
1929-03-15 | The Zionist Record of 15 March 1929 reported that Stern had just left for 'a month's work' in Pondoland; and on 10 May 1929, the South African Jewish Chronicle recorded that: Irma Stern has just returned from a painting expedition to Pondoland
2008-01-01 | Stern's Pondo Woman in White (sold at Bonhams in 2008), an oil painting of the exact same size as the Young Pondo Man, and a possible pendant to it, most likely depicts mourning attire; and the white shawl over the young man's shoulder may also have this reference
[Propriété non datée]
- A private collection, South Africa
- Undoubtedly one of Irma Stern's most beautiful studies of an African figure, the present work most certainly represents a young Pondo man
- In 1929, Stern spent a few weeks in Pondoland where she made several studies of Pondo men and women in both charcoal and oil paint
- Reference to contemporary newspaper reports adds important details to this outline
- Motoring from Port St John, she came across a beautiful valley called Mgweyana
- To her intense delight she did find one house and a shop there
- It was owned by a Jew
- This Jewish storekeeper and his daughters, on being asked for accommodation, had a little discussion, then diffidently offered her the best they could – two rondavels
- Here she worked for some weeks and found rich material in the numerous natives who came every day to the Jew's store to buy and barter
- Irma Stern clearly learned some ethnography during her time in Pondoland
- In discussion with the artist after her return, Hora (pseudonym for Stern's friends Hilda Purwitsky and Roza van Gelderen) declared that Pondo people would wear white as a token of mourning; that both sexes had their face slit in childhood (to appease the ancestors); and that they wear their hair in long mournful tails
- The newspaper accounts of Stern's visit to Pondoland explain further details of the works she made there
- Whereas on other excursions Stern would visit African homesteads and record domestic activities and ritual occasions, her residence at the Pondoland store allowed her to select subjects out of their home context as they were visiting the store to make purchases
- The Young Pondo Man, the Pondo Woman in White and several head-and-shoulders charcoal drawings resemble honorific portraits in the organization of the figure in the format and the attention given to individual expression reflecting the pictorial encounter in the artist's rondavel studio
- The rare instance of Stern providing the name of her sitter 'Yekiwe' (i.e. 'Belonging') in one of her drawings confirms that this approach allowed the artist to get unusually close to her sitters
- Moreover, Stern's work at the Pondoland trading store is unusual in her oeuvre in that there survive a number of finished drawings that are very close to completed oil paintings
- For example, the design of the 'Pondo Woman in White' is repeated in a large charcoal drawing Pondo Woman drawn in 1929; and the painting and matching drawing from 1929 that have been identified as a Swazi Youth almost certainly represent a languorous Pondo Youth made on this same excursion
- Too little is known of Stern's painting practice to be certain but it is clear that in 1927 she created compositions in her Cape Town studio from drawings made during her trip to Swaziland (Composition, Repose, etc.); and the finished state of these Pondoland drawings would have allowed her to do the same with them
- But the rarity of such repeated images thereafter permits the suggestion that Stern made both drawings and paintings in Pondoland – and thus started her practice of painting directly from the model: in fact, Hora recorded in the Ivri Onouchi article that 'she brought back with her a tremendous number of completed pictures' from this trip
- The 'Young Pondo Man' and the languorous 'Pondo Yout
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