Notes

Irma Stern travelled extensively in 1950, the year in which the present lot was painted. Corresponding very frequently with her best friend, Freda Feldman, there is, however, a curious absence of letters between March and September. When Stern did seem to catch her breath, she enumerated the following places: ‘Went to Madeira – Lisbon – Madrid – Monaco – Venice – Geneva – Paris – London – mostly by air – or car – saw the South of France by car and part of North Italy.’ ¹ Judging from the little houses in the background of this sumptuous portrait of a woman with white head scarf holding fruit in her hand, Stern could well have painted it on her first stop of this protracted trip, namely on the island of Madeira. Similar buildings appear in the background of Stern’s other paintings of the island, also dated 1950. The fruit in the sitter’s hand are very likely anona or custard apples. Stern ends her letter to Freda with this confident note: ‘Learned that my work stands and holds good with Europe.’ The present lot attests to her valuation of her work.

^1. Sandra Klopper (2017) Irma Stern: Are You Still Alive? Stern’s life and art seen through her letters to Richard and Freda Feldman, 1934–1966. Cape Town: Orisha Publishing, page 177.