Strauss & co - 24 May 2010, Johannesburg

140 246 Irma Stern south african 1894–1966 A Still Life of Dahlias and Fruit signed and dated 1960 oil on canvas 100 by 92,5 cm R4 000 000 – 6 000 000 For Irma Stern, still life painting was a genre that allowed her to explore colour combinations, spatial dynamics and composition, without being constrained by mimesis. While portraiture required some degree of similitude, still life was for her the ideal genre in which to experiment. When compared with earlier interpretations of the same subject, this painting ably demonstrates how far she was able to push the medium. Two earlier versions of the same subject are known. A Still Life with Fruit and Dahlias, painted in 1946, was sold at auction in November 1999 in Johannesburg and Still Life with Dahlias , painted in 1947, is featured in Marion Arnold’s handsome monograph, Irma Stern: A Feast for the Eye (p 124). Both display the modulated colour, tonal values and shadows which Stern employed to achieve convincing three-dimensional form. In this later version of the same subject, painted in 1960, brilliant colours and complementaries are splashed across the canvas revealing a freedom of expression not evident in her earlier paintings. Her colour was never freer or bolder. An almost delirious explosion of brilliant, hot colour - vermillion, cerise, peach, Naples yellow, pink, mauve - holds the centre of the painting while complementaries of blue, green and purple reverberate with visual excitement towards the edges. Painting the dahlia petals with thick impasto and radiating lines gives the impression of whirling dervishes confirming the artist’s palpable enjoyment of paint. By contrast, the saturated, luminous citron yellow of the vase continually draws the eye back to the pulsating heart of the picture. Beside it, the unexpected clash of papaya on a pink cloth, with magenta highlights and green swirls, is entirely unpredictable. Painted in 1960 when the artist was 66, and clearly demonstrating her confidence to paint with abandon, this is one of the finest examples of her later paintings where she luxuriates in the pleasure of paint. Her lack of interest in persuading the viewer that these are ordinary objects existing in convincing space and her commitment to treating the picture plane as a flat surface on which to enact her painting, suggest that Stern was closer in spirit to her international, post-war contemporaries than she has been given credit for.