Portraits by the ‘grande dame’ of the South African art market appear fairly regularly at auction with Bonhams having sold three for over £1m in London since 2010.
This 2ft 10in x 22in (86 x 56cm) signed oil on canvas titled The Red Dress dates from 1949, a period when her works became bolder and more brightly coloured as her confidence grew after a number of successful exhibitions earlier in the 1940s.
Bonhams director of South African Art, Giles Peppiatt said: “Irma Stern spent many years traveling, and was fascinated by the different cultures she encountered. At a time when the sitter would have been viewed as a second-class citizen, The Red Dress demonstrates a sympathy and mutual understanding between the white European artist and her subject.”
Malay communities have existed in the Cape since the 17th century with the first immigrants arriving as political exiles or slave labour from the Dutch East Indies. At the time the painting was executed, the Cape Malays were still marginalised and Stern, who was of German-Jewish heritage, often empathised with outsiders in her pictures.
At the Bonhams sale in New Bond Street on September 13, it is estimated at £250,000-300,000.
Elsewhere at the sale, a landscape by Jacob Pierneef (South African, 1886-1957) from 1946 will also be on offer. Hartbeespoort Dam is a revision of one of the artist’s most important compositions: a panel from a commission for the Johannesburg railway station.
‘Hartbeespoort Dam’ by Jacob Pierneef which is also offered at the Bonhams sale.
