Irma Stern portrait sells for R21.7 million after fierce auction bidding

A refrain of enthusiastic bidders, 5 on the phone and one within the salesroom, competed for Irma Stern’s 1946 portrait Malay (Black Headdress) when it went on sale in the course of the third version of Strauss & Co’s annual The Worldwide Sale on Tuesday, 28 October.

Returning to market after greater than a half-century in personal arms, this luminous portrait of a Cape Muslim girl, executed in predominantly yellow, offered to a resolute phone bidder for R21.7 million / $1.26 million.

‘Distinctive high quality’

The spectacular outcome, the very best worth ever paid for a Irma Stern portrait of a feminine sitter in Africa, comes at a time of extraordinary worldwide visibility for the artist.

Stern is at the moment the topic of a complete profession survey on the Brücke Museum in Berlin, town of her early beginnings as an artist  within the 1910s.

Final yr, Stern’s 1942 portrait of Emma Bakayishonga, the sister of Rwanda’s King Mutara III Rudahigwa, was featured in the principle exhibition of the sixtieth version of the Venice Biennale.

Stern’s renewed prominence, coupled with the distinctive high quality and unusually discreet provenance of Malay (Black Headdress), noticed patrons from a number of continents register curiosity.

Bidding was intense, at one level leaping in increments of R1 million, till lastly the gavel sounded.

The ultimate sale worth is the second highest quantity ever paid for a Stern at public sale at Strauss & Co, bested solely by the R22.3 million achieved in a 2023 sale for her 1939 composition Youngsters Studying the Koran.

‘Distinctive portrait’

“It was a real privilege to deal with this distinctive portrait. The excellent outcome displays the end result of our devoted efforts to current this work to the market and to main Stern collectors worldwide. The outstanding worth achieved affirms the work’s distinctive high quality and significance’, commented Bina Genovese, Managing Govt and Senior auctioneer after taking the sale.

Strauss & Co’s two-part The Worldwide Sale, together with Irma Stern’s Malay (Black Headdress) introduced collectively collectable artworks spanning 5 centuries, together with works by Marc Chagall, David Hockney, Otto Modersohn, Pablo Picasso, and Andy Warhol.

The 69-lot Night Sale generated R27.8 million / $1.6 million in turnover from 70% heaps offered.

Picasso’s Couple et Flûtistes au Bord d’un Lac (Couple and Flutists by the Lake), a bacchanalian marine scene from the artist’s celebrated late collection of linocuts produced within the south of France, fetched R1 million / $60 601.

Chagall’s La Baie des Anges (The Bay of Angels), created in 1961-62 at his Mourlot studio in Paris, offered for R485 205 / $28 280, whereas an undated panorama by Modersohn, wealthy with symbolism and emotion, achieved R554 520 / $32 321.