Irma Stern: Zulu girls
Stern, Irma (1894 - 1966)
Zulu girls - 1935
Charcoal
47 x 60 cm
Signed and dated top left
On loan
Referenced in Irma Stern and the Spirit of Africa by Joseph Sachs
Many of Stern’s portraits are both studies of the model and projections of the self. She sees herself in others and explores her own identity – woman, white German South African, Jewish, spinster/wife/divorcée, artist. In trying to come to terms with her own complexity and the disjunction between her outward appearance and internalized self-image, she paints many different people. In her studies of black and white, male and female, young and old, eminent and ordinary people, she seeks to understand her identification with and estrangements from others.
Marion Arnold, Irma Stern: A feast for the eye, Vlaeberg, 1995, p 98
ILLUSTRATED
Joseph Sachs, Irma Stern and the Spirit of Africa, JL van Schaik, 1942, p 69