Overview

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.

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9781350187535

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Reviews

LaNitra M. Berger's subtle and very timely study brilliantly mines Stern's story and her works' imagery to extract from them essential insights into global modernism, art under apartheid, and Stern's conflicted legacy. * Peter Chametzky, Professor of Art History, University of South Carolina, USA * Strikingly original and well-researched, Irma Stern and the Racial Paradox of South African Modern Art is the work of a pioneering scholar. Employing a powerful Black feminist and decolonial perspective, LaNitra M. Berger questions received ideas about what constitutes modern African art. She shows us that the life and work of a controversial white artist like Irma Stern, whose work was predicated on racial exploitation, is important to the formation of global modernism in South Africa and beyond. * Prita Meier, Associate Professor of Art History, New York University, USA *

Author Information

LaNitra M. Berger is Senior Director of Fellowships for the Office of Undergraduate Education and Affiliate Faculty in the African & African American Studies (AAAS) Program and the History and Art History Department at George Mason University, USA.

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