I wanted to observe firsthand the collecting mania that has driven the steady flow of Irma Sterns to achieve ever higher prices at auction, breaking record after record.
But this was not going to be a night of electricity, gasps and vigorously clapped applause. The richly pigmented still lifes of vases of flowers reached the lower ends of the estimates, about R10 million on average, but the bidding around the catalogue cover image The Lemon Pickers (R10 – R14 million) seemed strangely desultory, and the hammer went down at R9.5m – a sale which might still be under negotiation. On www.straussart.co.za, there’s a blank opposite the lot number (236),
The Lemon Pickers is a gorgeous painting of sinuous half clad women (well, it must have been very hot!) balletically gathering lemons (more breast forms) in a Gauguin style setting. (Gauguin made a somewhat stiff painting with the same name) So why would this sensual painting be left on the sale room floor when the pretty but conventional flower paintings all found new homes?
Are South African collectors too conservative for a little flesh?
Price wise and subject wise, It will be interesting to see what happens when another wave of Irma Sterns, including some of her best works, come under the hammer on March 23. This time, at Bonhams in London
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