Irma Stern sells for whopping R22.3m, setting new record
A painting by celebrated South African artist Irma Stern sold for R22.3m at an auction in Cape Town on Tuesday — a new African record for an artwork sold at an auction.
Auction house Strauss & Co confirmed yesterday the sale of Stern’s Children Reading the Koran (1939), inspired by her trip to Zanzibar.
The painting was sold to a bidder on the floor of Tuesday night’s auction.
“It is an outstanding price for an African modernist at auction and underscores Strauss & Co’s place as a custodian of value for important modernists like Irma Stern,” chair Frank Kilbourn said.
“The quality of our offering resulted in one of the strongest sales we have seen in some time.
“There was strong demand for revered South African painters, with especially competitive bidding for important works by Freida Lock, Hugo Naude, JH Pierneef, Alexis Preller, Vladimir Tretchikoff and Pieter Wenning.
“There can be no doubt that South Africa remains the best marketplace to trade artworks by the country’s premium modernists,” Kilbourn said.
The 110-lot auction sale of modern and contemporary art earned more than R70m, with a 79% sell-through rate “by lot and value combined”, the company said.
Stern’s Children Reading the Koran was reportedly based on the artist’s visit to a madrasa during her famed trip to Zanzibar.
In an interview with the Sunday Times after her trip, she claimed her presence in the madrasa was only briefly tolerated.
“The mothers of the pupils wanted to kill her as they were firmly convinced that if she painted the children, she would be stealing their souls,” the Sunday Times reported.
Irma Stern, who died in 1966, achieved national and international fame in her lifetime.