The expressionist Irma Stern (1894–1966) is considered one of the most important representatives of modern art in South Africa. In Germany, however, her art is hardly known.
This was once different: growing up between the two countries, she studied painting in Weimar and Berlin. In the 1920s, the capital’s most important galleries exhibited her expressive portraits and colorful landscapes. She was a founding member of the Novembergruppe and a close friend of the Brücke artist Max Pechstein. With the rise of the Nazis, Stern’s career in Germany came to an abrupt end: as a Jew, she was persecuted and her expressionist works were denounced as “degenerate.”
Rosa van Gelderen,
Stern’s work is complex and marked by an indissoluble historical ambivalence: as a woman, she had to assert herself in a male-dominated art world. As a Jew, she experienced exclusion and antisemitism. At the same time, as a white artist, she benefited from the racist social structures of colonialism and the apartheid system and presented herself as an “expert” on Black cultures.
The Brücke-Museum is dedicating the first solo museum exhibition in her former home city of Berlin to this important artist of global modernism.
Umgababa,
Over 40 paintings, drawings, and watercolors from international collections, primarily South African, enter into dialogue with works by the Brücke artists and invite visitors to (re)discover Irma Stern. A site-specific intervention by South African artist Athi-Patra Ruga reflects on Stern’s life and work from a queer Black perspective.
From September, the accompanying discourse programme Nicht Einfach (Not Easy) encourages visitors to reflect on Irma Stern, her art, and their own perspectives on social and historical contexts through tours, lectures, and discussions.
WHAT: Irma Stern. A Modern Artist between Berlin and Cape Town
WHERE: Brücke-Museum, Bussardsteig 9, 14195 Berlin, Germany
WHEN: 13. July to 2. November 2025 | Wednesday – Monday: 11 am – 5 pm Tuesdays closed
INFO: T +49 (0)30 8390 0860 | E info[at]bruecke-museum.de | VISIT | Cape Town: UCT Irma Stern Museum Visit
PHOTOS: LEAD Irma Stern, Zanzibar Boy, 1945, oil on canvas, Rupert Art Foundation, Rupert Museum, Stellenbosch © Irma Stern Trust / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025, photo: Courtesy of Rupert Art Foundation, Rupert Museum, Stellenbosch | Irma Stern, Portrait of Roza van Gelderen, 1930s, oil on canvas, Irma Stern Trust Collection, Cape Town © Irma Stern Trust / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025, photo: Courtesy of the Trustees of the Irma Stern Collection, Cape Town | Irma Stern, Umgababa, 1922, oil on canvas, Irma Stern Trust Collection, Cape Town © Irma Stern Trust / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025, photo: Courtesy of the Trustees of the Irma Stern Collection, Cape Town
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