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Irma Stern (South African, 1894-1966) Two Arabs image 1

Irma Stern (South African, 1894-1966) Two Arabs image 2

Lot 57

Irma Stern
(South African, 1894-1966)
Two Arabs

Modern & Contemporary African Art

8 October 2025, 15:00 BST

London, New Bond Street

Sold for £15,360 inc. premium

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Irma Stern (South African, 1894-1966)

Two Arabs
signed and dated '1938 Irma Stern' (lower right)
watercolour and crayon on paper
37 x 28cm (14 9/16 x 11in).

Footnotes

Irma Stern first visited Zanzibar in 1939, and returned for her second visit in 1945. The 1945 trip was carefully planned and it has been suggested that, for Stern, this second trip to the Spice Island was a deliberate attempt to cultivate something new within herself and her artwork. The works she produced in Zanzibar in 1945 mark the period of her greatest genius.

Stern had developed a fascination with Arab culture via the Malay population of Cape Town, but it was in Zanzibar where she was able to further immerse herself in their culture – taking tea with the Sultana, shopping in the bazaars, attending a wedding, living in a house opposite a mosque. She was diligent in her observations, noting with delight in her 1948 publication Zanzibar many facets of the Muslim community of Zanzibar. "I am living in an old Arab house opposite the mosque called the Sultan's mosque. It is pale blue and cool looking, with long stone rest-banks on which the pious seem to spend their days and nights" (I. Stern, Zanzibar, (Pretoria, 1948), p. 41).

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