STERN, IRMA (1894-1966)

"Reclining Nude" (1948)
authorised, limited edition lithograph, ed. 250
cm
*produced by The Graphic Guild, Cape Town
in collaboration with the Irma Stern Museum, 1971
*private collection, Sydney
 
Stern was a legendary South African Modernist. She is considered one of the most important of the pioneer artists in South Africa and the country's major painter. She received her formative art education in Germany. Throughout the 1920s she was active and travelled and exhibited in Germany and France, where her works were received with great critical acclaim. .It took some time before her genius was recognised in her native land, however. After years of struggle against philistinism she won herself a local audience. By the beginning of the decade of the 1940s her reputation was firmly established. Three of the works reproduced here are drawn from the period of the 1940s..The 5 works included in the folio were inspired by her travels abroad and particularly by her visits to the Congo, Zanzibar and Central Africa between 1942 and 1946, she developed the rich and confident style of which these works are excellent examples..They are are part of the permanent collection of the Irma Stern Museum. The Museum is housed in Irma's Cape Town house, The Firs, on the corner of Chapel and Cecil roads, Rosebank. The Irma Stern Museum was inaugurated in 1971 and is administered on behalf of her Estate by the University of Cape Town."
 
This stunning photolithograph was produced by The Graphic Guild, Cape Town, in collaboration with the Irma Stern Museum in 1971 as part of a folio of 5 original Stern works, in a run of only 250.