Stern reimagined

Faces of Cape Town: Portraits by Irma Stern is presented as a companion to The Berlin Years, the opening exhibition in the major new series Irma Stern: A life of displacement, presented by the Norval Foundation in partnership with the Irma Stern Trust and supported by Nedbank.

While The Berlin Years explores Stern’s early artistic development amid the upheaval of pre‑war Europe, the Strauss & Co capsule exhibition turns attention to her life in Cape Town, which ultimately anchored her long, prolific career and was her home base on her many travels.

Portraits from a life in motion

Though Stern travelled widely across Africa and Europe, Cape Town remained her creative and emotional centre. The portraits featured in this exhibition carry the curiosity and complexity that defined her relationships with the city’s people, many of whom were outsiders in some way, much as Stern’s own identity as a white Jewish, female artist whose identity was caught between two continents and a complicated set of political and social dynamics.

Focused, intimate, and character‑driven, the portraits offer a window into Stern’s evolution as an artist after her decision to make South Africa her permanent home, as well as a view onto her perception of Cape Town and its varied and diverse people. The portraits form an important window on the earlier work exploring people and identities in pre-war Germany that guides the larger exhibition taking place at the Norval Foundation.

Keeping a legacy alive

With the Irma Stern Museum at The Firs temporarily closed for urgent conservation work, this type of collaboration ensures that Stern’s work remains accessible to the public. The partnership between the Irma Stern Trust, Strauss & Co, the Norval Foundation and Nedbank reflects a shared commitment to preserving and sharing one of South Africa’s most significant modernist legacies.

Alongside the Stern portraits, the short film Irma Stern: A Modern Artist between Cape Town and Berlin, filmed during the landmark exhibition at Brücke Museum in Berlin, in 2025 will be screened in the venue at intervals throughout the exhibition.

Directed by Sean O’ Sullivan
Produced by Anne and Tessa Graaff