On Tuesday the 28th of March 2023, the record was broken by Stern (1894-1971) with Children Reading the Koran (1939), which sets a new record for the artist at R 22.3 million ($1.227 million). According to the auction house based in Johannesburg and Cape Town, this piece of work becomes the most expensive ever sold on the African continent.
Irma Stern was born in 1894 in Schweitzer-Renecke, South Africa. She spent some time in Germany, where she was taught by Max Pechstein, one of the founders of the Novembergruppe. She returned to South Africa and did several trips on the continent, to North Africa, Senegal, Congo, and Zanzibar. This latest trip inspired her to create Children Reading the Koran. The house in which Stern lived for almost forty years was transformed into a museum in 1971. The artist died on the 23rd of August 1966 in Cape Town.
Looking at sales outside the continent, women dominate the top African artists whose works have reached the highest auction prices. The record was set in 2021 by Julie Mehretu's Dissident Score (2019–21), which sold for $6.5 million via Artsy, followed by Marlene Dumas' The Visitor (1995), sold in 2008 for $6.3 million at Sotheby's in London, ahead of Irma Stern.
Beyond South Africa, Stern's work is present in the collections of prestigious museums, such as the MNAM - Centre Pompidou - Musée National d'Art Moderne, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen and the Art Gallery of Western Australia.
Cover image: Irma Stern, Children Reading the Koran (1939) - © Strauss & Co.
