Strauss & co - 12 November 2018, Johannesburg

196 285 Irma Stern SOUTH AFRICAN 1894–1966 Mary signed and dated 1941 oil on canvas 76,5 by 66 cm R5 000 000 – 7 000 000 LITERATURE Mona Berman (2003). Remembering Irma: Irma Stern – A Memoir with Letters , Cape Town: Double Storey, illustrated in colour on page 166. Standard Bank Gallery (2003). Irma Stern: Expressions of a Journey , Johannesburg: Standard Bank Gallery, illustrated in colour on page 81. The subject of this elegant portrait is Mary Cramer (née Ginsberg, 1912–1988), the younger sister of Irma Stern’s friend and confidante, Freda Feldman. Although it has some of the formal characteristics that we associate with Stern’s work in this genre – not least the vigorous impasto describing both form and detail – the portrait is uncharacteristically restrained for Stern. Like two other portraits painted during the early 1940s, Argentinian Woman (1941) (fig. 2) and Portrait of Stella, Lady Bailey (1944) (fig. 3) the painting also has something of a Spanish air. Photographs of Mary taken around the time this portrait was painted show that she wore her hair with a centre parting (fig. 1), but when combined with the flower behind her ear and the black dress with its transparent chiffon top with puffed sleeves and ruched collar, the Spanish reference is intensified. In effect, the painting is evocative of Goya’s portraits of noblewomen, particularly those of the Duchess of Alba. The Spanish references in these paintings may reflect something of Stern’s nostalgia for Spain at the time (her travels had been curtailed by the war in Europe, and she had not visited the continent since 1937), while they also create a sense of drama that puts the sitters outside of the constraints of everyday life. Mary was the second daughter, after Freda (who was 15 months her senior), in a family of ten children. Mona Berman, Freda’s daughter, notes that, ‘Where Freda was outgoing, self-reliant and charismatic, Mary was shy, reserved and inward looking. But despite these differences, they complemented each other and were seldom apart.’ 1 Indeed, so often was Mary at the Feldmans’ Houghton home that Mona speaks of Mary, who was childless, as a second mother, intimately connected with her childhood. Irma Stern was also a frequent visitor at the Feldmans during the 1940s and 50s, and Freda would go to considerable lengths to ensure that the artist’s considerable physical and practical demands were met, including painting the dining room walls a specific shade of emerald green at her behest, the better to offset her paintings. Compelled by Freda’s elegant appearance and gracious demeanour, Stern produced a number of portraits of her, including four oils (three of which were recently sold by Strauss & Co.), several charcoal drawings and a gouache. In 1941 Stern spent an extended time at the Feldmans during which time, as Mona recalls, ‘She painted many subjects, including the portrait of my mother in her model French hat and the portrait of Mary in her stylish black dress.’ 2 Mary, who was 29 years old when the portrait was painted, was, according to Mona Berman, ‘the most beautiful of all the sisters. She had classic features – a wide forehead, clear blue-green eyes, an aquiline nose and well-formed lips … She had impeccable taste and dressed in stylish but modest clothes … she looked like a Vogue model.’ 3 Indeed, Stern has made much of Mary’s alabaster skin, fine features and poised bearing in this portrait; the © Irma SternTrust | DALRO