Life Force - The Still LIfes of Irma Stern

24 For me, Irma’s still life works immediately evoke her studio! Her canary yellow studio! This beautifully proportioned room is at the end of the passage at ‘The Firs’, her former home, now the Irma Stern Museum, and is the heart of the house. It’s the most elegantly proportioned room in what is really, a quite straight forward house, having been built as a single storeyed farm house in the mid-19th century. But it’s an absolutely lovely house. Everyone who visits is captured by its atmospheric charm, its gravitas due to its contents and its spaciousness. The main feature of the studio, is a pair of French doors with elegant late Cape Georgian folding shutters which open onto an uncovered verandah and thereafter one plunges into the studio garden, which is full of all sorts of delicious ‘seasonals’, like snow drops in winter and azaleas in spring. Tall over-hanging camellia’s in red, pink and white, and a sturdy pomegranate tree, watch over this square garden. Beyond this is the giant magnolia grandiflora which produces luxuriant fragrant flowers which are a major role player in Irma’s still lifes. The pink/mauve tulip magnolia also features but on a quieter more elegant note. The leaves of the grandiflora are also sublime with their glossy green top and toffee velvet suede underneath. I feel that Irma’s ‘still life’ painting days were days of special happiness and contentment. A rare emotion for Irma. And excitement! A not so rare happening for Irma. This excitement I imagine was the result of plans having already been laid in her imagination which were then put into action by the creation of the tableaux on her studio table. These rollicking, glamorous compositions of texture, form, colour and spirit are quintessentially Irma! Spirit is manifest in the choice of treasured religious items in her collection. We see a Pieta, a Buddha, and masks from the Congo. Ancient Chinese martaban and some 20th century ceramic vases hold the flowers and Chinese bowls the fruit. The compositions render a co-dependence between the fruit and flowers. Voluptuous folds of fabric, or raffia mats look as though they have been placed there with the speed of summer lightning, which as you know, ‘can be absolutely frightening’ but here, whips us up into a visual frenzy! Her sensual engagement in the rendering of some fruits is seen in great slabs of pink watermelon and luscious, vivid orange paw paw and the paler spanspek. People have been known to say that she ate her still lifes! Irma opened herself up to all sorts if catty comments, but I wonder if this urban legend is really true? After all, she was so fastidious, and after a couple of days I’m sure paw paw from the pantry would have been far nicer! Maybe figs and persimmons, which she also The creation of Irma’s still lifes – a personal view Christopher Peter curator, irma stern museum, cape town