Strauss & co - 23 May 2016, Johannesburg

158 254 Irma STERN south african 1894–1966 Still Life with Mask signed and dated 1933 oil on canvas laid down on board 56,5 by 43 cm R900 000 – 1 300 000 © Irma SternTrust | DALRO Considering the vibrancy of colour and confidence evident in Stern’s Still Life with Mask, it comes as no surprise that Marion Arnold, author of Irma Stern: A Feast for the Eye, devoted an entire chapter to the artist’s still lifes. ‘Although many of Irma Stern’s wide range of subjects derived from hasty notations during her travels’, Arnold wrote, ‘the interior spaces of her home and the sanctuary that was her studio were as important to her as the world at large. Her still life paintings comprise some of her most sumptuous and sensual images. Here – in her depictions of objects – she fuses form and content, Modernist preoccupations with visual language, and social commentary on nature and material culture’. 1 1. Arnold, Marion. (1995) Irma Stern: A Feast for the Eye. Vlaeberg: Fernwood Press. Page 125.