Exhibition | 14 – 23 February 2026 | Cape Town
Strauss & Co, in partnership with Brickfield Canvas, is honoured to present Faces of Cape Town: Portraits by Irma Stern, a capsule exhibition opening on 14 February. Showcasing a selection of portraits drawn from the Irma Stern Trust Collection, the exhibition offers a rare opportunity to encounter Stern’s deeply human depictions of the people who shaped her Cape Town world – from well‑known cultural figures to lesser‑documented sitters whose stories live on through her work.
Faces of Cape Town is presented as a companion to The Berlin Years, the opening exhibition in the major new series Irma Stern: A life of displacement, curated by Senior Curator Karel Nel, presented by the Norval Foundation in partnership with the Irma Stern Trust and supported by Nedbank.
Short Film
Irma Stern: A Modern Artist between Cape Town and Berlin, filmed during the landmark exhibition at Brücke Museum in 2025 will be screened in the venue, at intervals, throughout the exhibition.
Directed by Sean O’ Sullivan
Produced by Anne and Tessa Graaff
PRESS RELEASE
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…
