A chorus of enthusiastic bidders, five on the telephone and one in the salesroom, competed for Irma Stern’s 1946 portrait Malay (Black Headdress) when it went on sale during the third edition of Strauss & Co’s annual The International Sale on Tuesday, 28 October.
Returning to market after more than a half-century in private hands, this luminous portrait of a Cape Muslim woman, executed in predominantly yellow, sold to a resolute telephone bidder for R21.7 million / $1.26 million.
‘Exceptional quality’
The impressive result, the highest price ever paid for a Irma Stern portrait of a female sitter in Africa, comes at a time of extraordinary international visibility for the artist.
Stern is currently the subject of a comprehensive career survey at the Brücke Museum in Berlin, the city of her early beginnings as an artist in the 1910s.
Last year, Stern’s 1942 portrait of Emma Bakayishonga, the sister of Rwanda’s King Mutara III Rudahigwa, was featured in the main exhibition of the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale.
Stern’s renewed prominence, coupled with the exceptional quality and unusually discreet provenance of Malay (Black Headdress), saw buyers from multiple continents register interest.
Bidding was intense, at one point jumping in increments of R1 million, until finally the gavel sounded.
The final sale price is the second highest amount ever paid for a Stern at auction at Strauss & Co, bested only by the R22.3 million achieved in a 2023 sale for her 1939 composition Children Reading the Koran.
‘Exceptional portrait’
“It was a true privilege to handle this exceptional portrait. The outstanding result reflects the culmination of our dedicated efforts to present this work to the market and to major Stern collectors worldwide. The remarkable price achieved affirms the work’s exceptional quality and significance’, commented Bina Genovese, Managing Executive and Senior auctioneer after taking the sale.
Strauss & Co’s two-part The International Sale, including Irma Stern’s Malay (Black Headdress) brought together collectable artworks spanning five centuries, including works by Marc Chagall, David Hockney, Otto Modersohn, Pablo Picasso, and Andy Warhol.
The 69-lot Evening Sale generated R27.8 million / $1.6 million in turnover from 70% lots sold.
Picasso’s Couple et Flûtistes au Bord d’un Lac (Couple and Flutists by the Lake), a bacchanalian marine scene from the artist’s celebrated late series of linocuts produced in the south of France, fetched R1 million / $60 601.
Chagall’s La Baie des Anges (The Bay of Angels), created in 1961-62 at his Mourlot studio in Paris, sold for R485 205 / $28 280, while an undated landscape by Modersohn, rich with symbolism and emotion, achieved R554 520 / $32 321.
