Review 2011

Irma Stern Two Arabs signed and dated 1939 oil on canvas, in the original Zanzibar frame 58 by 84cm Sold R21 166 000, September 2011 RECORD The highest price ever paid for a painting in South Africa Two Arabs , painted in 1939, is undoubtedly the most important Irma Stern to come onto the South African market in recent years. This work ably demonstrates Irma Stern’s unique ability to fuse her passion for African themes with European traditions of painting that can be traced back to the greatest nineteenth- and twentieth-century masters from Eugène Delacroix through Vincent Van Gogh to the German Expressionists with whom she was closely associated in her formative years. Emma Bedford, Senior Paintings Specialist, Strauss & Co 26