Artists

Sculptor and writer, Rhona Stern, was born in Johannesburg in 1914. While she initially enrolled in architecture at the University of the Witwatersrand, she abandoned her degree after marriage. Stern took up sculpture and writing, publishing two novels in 1964 and 1969. However, she was forced to stop writing when the South African authorities deemed her works to be too subversive and placed them under embargo. Stern, initially influenced by Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti, continued with her sculpting and participated in several exhibitions. Her works are held in the collections of the Hester Rupert Art Gallery, Graaff-Reinet, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Pretoria Art Museum, and the Witwatersrand Art Museum, Johannesburg. Stern, who practiced the lost-wax technique of bronze casting, was also a part-time lecturer at the University of Pretoria. She died in 1998 at her house on Jellicoe Avenue in Johannesburg, where she had been living for 50 years.

Image source: https://art-archives-southafrica.com/lib/cceaba/RhonaSTERN-archives-kgw9qsd0.pdf with the caption 'Rhona Stern – illustrated in ARTLOOK 36, Johannesburg (November, 1969) p30 with some works from her soloshow at the Lidchi Gallery, Johannesburg, 1969'