Irma Stern and the Racial Paradox of South African Modern Art : Audacities of Color

"South African artist Irma Stern (1894-1966) is one of the nation's most enigmatic modern figures-Stern held conservative political positions on race even as her subjects openly challenged racism and later the apartheid regime. Using paintings, archival research, and new interviews, this book explores how Stern became South Africa's most prolific painter of black, Jewish, and coloured (mixed-race) life while maintaining controversial positions on race. Through her art, Stern played a crucial role in both the development of modernism in South Africa and in defining modernism as a global movement. Spanning the Boer War to Nazi Germany to apartheid South Africa and into the contemporary #RhodesMustFall movement, Irma Stern's work documents important twentieth-century cultural and political moments. More than 50 years after her death, Stern's legacy challenges assumptions about race, gender roles, and religious identity and how they are represented in art history"-- Provided by publisher Title Page Copyright Page Contents Plates Figures Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1: Irma Stern in a Global Context: Expressionist Influences Expressionist Beginnings: Artists Exploring Questions about the State The Eternal Child and the Context of the First World War “You Are Equipped with Your Own Language”: Irma Stern and Max Pechstein The Berlin-Africa Nexus The Galerie Fritz Gurlitt and Dumela Marena Enter Alain Locke’s The New Negro Chapter 2: Cape Town Blues: Painting South Africa Accepting the Privileges with “Both Hands”: Whiteness and the South African Jewish Community The South African Jewish Community’s Support for Irma Stern Stern and “Modernism”: The Exhibitions at Ashbey’s Art Gallery “Macaroons in Profusion”: The Critical Response to Stern’s Modernism Artistic and Social Significance of Stern’s Work Van Riebeeck’s Children: Coloured Women in Irma Stern’s Art Withdrawing from the Blind Alley: The South African Response to Nazism and Degenerate Art Women and Changing Attitudes toward Modernism Pictures That Satisfy: Redefining the Modern in South Africa Chapter 3: Congo and Zanzibar Mixing Art and Politics: Stern’s “Pre-Departure Orientation” Congo (1942) Stern’s Congo: Introduction “Treasure Hunt” Féte Nationale Congo’s Reception Zanzibar (1948) Chapter 4: Modernism under Apartheid: Art and Social Context Apartheid’s Beginnings Stern in Postwar Europe Art and Apartheid Abroad “Perhaps the Change Lay in the Natives, Perhaps in Myself” The Van Riebeeck Tercentenary The Battle with Abstraction Stern, Israel, and the Jewish Resistance to Apartheid Maid in Uniform: Stern’s Portrayal of Black Defiance Bringing South Africa to Europe: Stern and the Emergence of Global Modernism The Treason Trial Stern’s Final Years Chapter 5: If Rhodes Must Fall, Must Stern Fall? Audacities of Color in Post-Apartheid South Africa Irma Stern in “Rhodes Must Fall” South Africa “Born Free” Reflections on Irma Stern Duduzile (Dudu) More Thuli Lubisi Pule Ratsoma David Madlabane Conclusion Archives Biographical Timeline and Selected Exhibitions Bibliography Index "South African artist Irma Stern (1894-1966) is one of the nation's most enigmatic modern figures. Stern held conservative political positions on race even as her subjects openly challenged racism and later the apartheid regime. Using paintings, archival research, and new interviews, this book explores how Stern became South Africa's most prolific painter of Black, Jewish, and Colored (mixed-race) life while maintaining controversial positions on race. Through her art, Stern played a crucial role in both the development of modernism in South Africa and in defining modernism as a global movement. Spanning the Boer War to Nazi Germany to apartheid South Africa and into the contemporary #RhodesMustFall movement, Irma Stern's work documents important twentieth-century cultural and political moments. More than fifty years after her death, Stern's legacy challenges assumptions about race, gender roles, and religious identity and how they are represented in art history." -- Provided by publisher