Irma Stern

“I did tell you that I met Epstein in London – that he loved my work – spent a few hours in my exhibition and said, ‘At last a painter who can paint comes to London. Do you know that nobody living can paint flowers better than you do – that the Renoir roses I just saw look like paper against your flowers’.” (Irma Stern, letter to Richard and Frieda Feldman, 1937)

It is possible the present lot, painted in 1937, was included in one of Stern's two solo exhibitions in London that year; one at Cooling Galleries, 92 New Bond Street, and the other at Leger Galleries, 13 Old Bond Street, which is where Jacob Epstein paid her this enormous compliment.

Irma Stern’s visual fascination with the natural world is clearly demonstrated in her still lifes, which span her full career from the 1920s to the 1960s. These depictions of flower arrangements provided the artist with an opportunity for formal experimentation, and Dahlias with Watermelons perfectly illustrates the rich colours and brushwork that are typical of Stern’s work in this genre. 

Dahlias with Watermelons showcases two of Sterns favourite subjects and is both naturalistic and descriptive; it manages to combine an intensity of expression with a true sense of character and colour. The luscious tones of the flowers and watermelon stand out against a vibrant, luminous turquoise backdrop. Stern skillfully orchestrates a playful interplay among the contrasting shapes within the composition, juxtaposing the fruit, flowers, clay pot, and metal pan. The distinctive Cape copper pan tart, with its intricate form, makes repeated appearances in her still life compositions. The watermelon also makes several appearances in this body of work, including Still life with Watermelons, 1949, in the collection of the University of Pretoria, and Still Life with Fruits and Flowers, 1933, sold in these rooms in 2008.

In keeping with a typically Expressionist style, Stern makes use of thick impasto applied in short assertive brushstrokes, especially apparent in the pink flower petals. This energetic and expressive paint application combines with the lush colours to create a uniquely colourful and vital interpretation of the traditional still life. This sensual and eclectic work sees the artist at her most inspired; it is a quintessential Stern, infused with drama and executed with an elegant and masterful control.

These abundant and seductive still lifes were usually set up in the artist’s studio at her home in Cape Town, The Firs (now the Irma Stern Museum). While many of her paintings are the result of hasty experiments on the move, “the interior spaces of her home and the sanctuary that was her studio were as important to her as the world at large” (Marion Arnold, Irma Stern: A Feast for the Eye, Vlaeberg, 1995, p. 125). To one side of her studio, French doors opened onto her mature garden, where she cultivated a wide variety of flowers including “larkspur, stocks, enormous geraniums, all shades of pelargoniums, great balls of white and also yellow daisies, violet and yellow poppies, sunflowers, and many, many roses, carnations, petunias, fuchsias” (the artist’s letter to Trude Bosse dated 14 November 1928, as quoted in Karel Schoeman, Irma Stern: The Early Years, Cape Town, 1994, p. 88).