The Journal and Letters (1917-1933) of Irma Stern.

Edited with a Commentary by Neville Dubow.

Irma Stern is acknowledged as a major painter and one of South Africa’s most important pioneer artists. She received her early art education in Germany, before returning to southern Africa where she travelled widely throughout the 1920’s. In the same decade she exhibited her work in Europe to critical acclaim, but it took some time for her genius to be recognised in her native land. After years of struggle she finally won a South African audience, by the 1930’s her reputation was well on its way to being established in South Africa.

Inspired by further travels abroad, and particularly by her visits to the Congo, Central Africa and Zanzibar, Irma Stern consolidated the rich confident style that marked her mature and late periods, which took her to France, Spain and other European centres.

This new study by Neville Dubow brings valuable insight to the formative years of Irma Stern’s development. The book is based on the previously unpublished Journal kept by the artist betwe3en 1919 and 1924, and on recently discovered letters from Irma Stern to a German friend and confidante., Trude Bosse. The time span of this book has thus been expanded to cover the correspondence, which begins in 1917, concentrates on the period of the Journal, and continues until 1933, the year which marks the effective end of Irma Stern’s marriage and the tailing off of her letters to Trude Bosse.

The richly illustrated Journal is re-produced here, with a translation and commentary. The letters confirm much of what the Journal suggests about the young artist’s emotional vulnerability and overpowering creative drive.

This is an important publication which breaks new ground and is seminal to the understanding of the art of Irma Stern, on of South Africa’s major painters of the 20th century.