Fishing Harbour, Algeciras

Notes

Harbour views are significant in Stern’sviconography as either a punctuation point signifying an arrival in a new land after a long sea voyage or possibly before departure, at the end of a trip. These welcoming ports, positioned between land and sea, often ushered in a first impression of a previously unseen land. After long, inactive periods at sea, these ports with their own distinctive topography and architecture, and with differing cultural influences, became a powerful expressive watershed, inviting the artist to represent them. In so many of these paintings, Sterns excitement is palpable, through her energised brushstrokes, as she sought to capture the spirit of a place.

As a prolific traveller, she had the opportunity to visit Madeira en route from Africa to Europe on several occasions and like Pierneef and Naudé before her, she was drawn to the East African
coast, visiting Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, during the second world war. Each arrival coincided with a new harbour or a port. After the war, she resumed her travels to Europe travelling regularly in the last two decades of her life. In the 1950’s she travelled frequently, attending the Venice Biennale in 1952, 1954 and 1958 as a participating artist, representing her country. The present lot, painted in 1958, during a period of innovation which came to characterise her late style.

This large-scale work painted in a bold gestural style, with the composition simplified into linear forms with the use of striking colour, verges on abstraction. The wharf side, characterised
by rounded, curved forms, seen in the fishing boats and sails, is offset against the hard edged, geometric structures of the buildings and fishing boats’ masts. Stern illuminates the buildings in stark white and golden tones, contrasting them against the shadowed, jewel-like colours in the foreground.

Provenance

Purchased from the artist by Professor and Mrs W E G Louw.

Stephan Welz & Co in Association with Sotheby's, Johannesburg, 17 May 1999, lot 337.

Private Collection, Cape Town.

Exhibited

Regency Gallery, Cape Town, Irma Stern, 24 February to 11 March 1959, cat. no 1.

Galerie Wolfgang Gurlitt, Munich, Irma Stern, 11 February to 7 March 1960, cat. no 4.

Lidchi Gallery, Johannesburg, Irma Stern, 13 to 26 February 1962, cat. no 15.

Galerie Andre Weil, Paris, Irma Stern, 12 January to 25 January 1965, cat. no 33.

South African National Gallery, Cape Town, Cape Arts Festival, Homage to Irma Stern, 1968, cat. no 71.

Literature

Magda Sauer (1959) 'Irma Stern', in Our Art I, Pretoria: Foundation for Education, Science and Technology, pages 103 to 104 and illustrated as figure VII in colour on page 107.

F E L Alexander (1962) Art in South Africa: Painting Sculpture and Graphic Work since 1900, Cape Town: AA Balkema, illustrated as figure 64 on page 93.

Sean O'Toole (ed) (2006) Between Foothold and Flight, Johannesburg: Graham's Fine Art Gallery, illustrated in colour as cat. no 3 on pages 38-41 and page 84.