Meet Michael Godby, whose book Object Lessons: Still Life Paintings by Irma Stern 1908-1965 was recently launched at the Irma Stern Museum, and on the Sanlam Arts Round Up this week is an extract of his interview on Fine Music Radio’s Book Choice.
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Michael Godby, who previously wrote on Irma Stern Nudes, tells us what motivated him to focus on her still lifes. Still life was taught, and in fact still is, to every artist of that period, along with nudes. They are completely different, particularly in terms of composition. In nudes, the focus is the centre of the painting. In still life the artist turns to compose across the length and breadth of the format and in fact the pictorial depth. It’s a medium she referred to all her life, when she wanted to experiment with other aspects of her practice, particularly colour or pictorial space. As you can see from the dates, throughout her life, it was a genre she constantly returned to.
Her compositions do reflect particular interests at given times. Returning to South Africa in 1920she wanted to modernise the genre as it was practiced in the Cape, which was Victorian, boring and centred on flowers. She wanted to modernise and Africanise still lifes. She wanted to tell people in Europe, particularly those in Berlin, that these painting were not made there, but in the Cape. So, she used local flowers and local objects. She wanted to introduce new German expressionist ideas. Her idyllic African figure painting did not admit expressionism to a great extent. Her still lifes were quite radical in terms of colour usage and definition of forms and space. In the 1920’s she presented herself as a modernist in conservative Cape Town.
The choice of objects in her still lifes came from her collection. Many are still held in this amazing collection of material culture from Africa and also East Asia and Europe. She started collecting while a student in Berlin and continued to collect all her life.
Irma travelled extensively, and while some of this might be reflected in the still lifes, the work was essentially done at home, in Cape Town. Towards the end of her life there were scenes through windows in the background, but they done at home.
The book is divided into chapters, covering the different periods of her work, from the deliberate move into modernism and Africanising in earlier days, through to around the 1930’s when she decided to explore colour more fully and turned to Cezanne for structured, new compositions.
The importance of the book is that it allows one to follow a particular theme in her painting career from A to Z and see what changes and what still stays the same in the work of the dynamic Irma Stern.
Object Lessons: Still Life Paintings by Irma Stern 1908-1965 – Michael Godby can be bought when visiting the Irma Stern Museum.
WHAT: Object Lessons: Still Life Paintings by Irma Stern 1908-1965 – Michael Godby
WHERE: Irma Stern Museum, 21 Cecil Road, Rosebank, Cape Tow 7600
INFO: T 021 650 7240/1 | Visit | See also Brücke Museum Berlin – Irma Stern. A Modern Artist between Berlin and Cape Town
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