Irma Stern: A Feast For The Eye By Marion Arnold
Irma Stern: A Feast For The Eye By Marion Arnold
Hardcover
ISBN 0620190140
Publisher: Fernwood Press 1995
Used - Very Good+. This book is in very good condition. The Dust Jacket has some very limited signs of wear and the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. The book is protected with a Cellophane cover.
Irma Stern was one of South Africa's most prolific artists. This book discusses her life, her career and the impact of Africa on her work.
Irma Stern’s paintings are remarkable for their saturated colors and sensory nature. Her most arresting works are portraits of Africans, but she also paints landscapes and still lifes. Some of the still lifes incorporate works of African sculpture from her personal collection, e.g., “Buli stool with fruit” (1952), which depicts a Luba caryatid by the Buli master (page 146).
In this full-blown art historical study of Irma Stern, Arnold explores the life and work of this expressionist painter whose “vision of Africa” has today “become a target for post-colonial analysis and is often discussed as too eclectic, politically incorrect, and as a mere appropriator of other cultures” (page 150). Arnold takes a more sympathetic view, while recognizing the limitations of the artist and the woman. There is, however, no denying the richness of Stern’s œuvre — a feast for the eye. More than one hundred paintings are reproduced in color.
Reviewed by Karin M. Skawran in De arte (Pretoria) 54, September 1996, page 58.
Berman, Mona. Remembering Irma: Irma Stern: a memoir with letters. Cape Town: Double Storey, 2003. vii, 184pp. illus. (pt. color). ND1096.S8B47 2003 AFA. OCLC 53216960.
Mona Berman’s memories of Irma Stern are childhood recollections of the imperious and eccentric artist, who was a friend of Freda and Richard Feldman, Berman’s parents. As a child Berman resented and avoided Stern during her extended visits to her parents. Now she takes an extremely sympathetic view of both the artist and her parents’ relationship with her. Stern visited the Feldmans often and corresponded frequently over three decades. Her letters to the Feldmans, which are the centerpiece of this memoir, reveal the more personal and intimate side of Stern as well as the complexities of her personality. The Feldman’s admired and purchased Stern paintings and were sitters for multiple portraits. This book is fascinating reading.
