Irma Stern's work Arab Priest reached a record price of £3,044,000 – some 30 percent above (£600,000) at a March auction in London of South African art. Now, the SA antiquities preservation authorities have refused to issue an export permit for the painting and the Qataris will have to find somewhere in SA to hang it.

The sale of the “Arab Priest” smashed Stern’s previous record, also made at Bonham’s in London in October 2010 where her painting titled “Bahora Girl” sold for £2.4m (R26.6m).

The pre-sale estimate for the record-breaking painting was £1.5m to £2m.

Irma Stern was born in 1894 to German Jewish parents at Schweizer-Reneke what is today the North West Province – SEE MORE ON STERN BELOW THIS REPORT.

In all, four new records for South African artists were set at Bonham’s sale of South African Masterpieces in London on 23 March, with an Irma Stern, 'Arab Priest' at £3,044,000 (R34m), an Alexis Preller, 'Garden of Eden' at £748,000 (R8.4m), a Gerard Sekoto, 'Yellow Houses' at £602,400 (R6.7m) and a Francois Krige, 'Basotho Village' at £90,000 (R1m).

Giles Peppiatt, Director of South African Art at auctioneers Bonhams, said: “There was evidence of a highly educated group of buyers in the room and on the phone. They picked the best and paid handsomely for it. If the sale has a message it is that there is a growing appetite for the best of Stern but alongside that long discernible trend is the growing number of other artists beginning to command outstanding prices, these names now include South Africa's leading black artist, Gerard Sekoto and Alexis Preller.”

Bonhams said the buyers were made up of a range of nationalities including South Africans at home and abroad plus many non-South Africans. Buyers came from countries as diverse as Canada, Switzerland, Cyprus, Germany, Spain, UK, USA, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kuwait, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands

Irma Stern - The Woman

Irma Stern was born in 1894 to German Jewish parents at Schweizer-Reneke, a small town in the North West Province of South Africa.

Her father, Samuel, and a brother, Leopald, had emigrated earlier in 1891 and established a thriving trading store and cattle farm. However, both brothers were interned during the Anglo Boer War (1899-1902) because of their pro Boer sympathies so Irma together with her young brother, Rudi, were taken by their mother, Henny (nee Fels) to Cape Town.

After the war the children went to Germany with their parents and thus began a pattern of regular travel, which was to characterize and influence Irma's development as an artist and individual and continue throughout her adult life.

Although the family returned to South Africa for intermittent periods while Irma was growing up, they spent the years of the First World War (1914-1918) in Germany. Irma decided to become a painter and was supported in her decision by her parents.

She studied in Berlin and Weimer and met the Expressionist, Max Pechstein in 1916 who encouraged and influenced her work and helped arranged her first exhibition in Berlin before she returned to South Africa with her family in 1920. Initially derided and dismissed as an artist in Cape Town where her work was not understood by the conservative citizens, Irma Stern remained passionate to her vocation and was regarded as an established artist by the 1940s.

In 1926 she married Dr Johannes Prinz her former tutor, who subsequently became professor of German at the University of Cape Town. They were divorced in 1934.

A house named "The Firs" in Rosebank, Cape Town was bought for her by her parents in 1927 and remained her home until her death in 1966.

This house became the Irma Stern Museum in 1971. It was established by Trustees of her estate and is administered by the University of Cape Town. Three of the rooms are furnished as she arranged them; the sitting room, dining room and studio all demonstrate her unique style and eclectic taste as a collector. Upstairs there is a commercial gallery available for hire by contemporary South African artists. A temporary exhibition programme is arranged annually and visitors can enjoy the garden.

The museum, situated in Cecil Road, Rosebank, Cape Town, is open from Tuesday - Saturday: 10h00-17h00. A modest entrance fee is charged. Phone 685 5686 for further details.

Her travels as an adult

Irma Stern travelled extensively in Europe and explored Southern Africa, Zanzibar and the Congo. These trips provided a wide range of subject matter for her paintings and gave her opportunities to acquire and assemble an eclectic collection of artefacts for her home.

She journeyed to Swaziland and Natal in particular during the 1920's, producing two of her seminal works titled Umgababa and The Hunt, both of which can be viewed at the Museum.

In 1931 she visited Madeira and Dakar, Senegal, in 1937 and 1938.

A letter from the artist to friends in Johannesburg named Richard and Frieda Feldman, dated 26 June 1937, written from Brussels, describes some of these travel plans. "... after Holland - a week in Paris for sights and hats and pictures... - then Salsburg Festspiele for a week - then Vienna. After that Italy - and I start working - there and in Marseille and on my back I am staying a month in Dakar... We hope there will be no war - things are so unsettled just now."

Irma Stern refused to either travel or exhibit in Germany during the period 1933 - 1945. Instead, she undertook several exotic journeys into Africa; going to Zanzibar twice in 1939 and 1945 and then planned three trips to the Congo in 1942, 1946 and 1955. These expeditions resulted in a wealth of artistic creativity and energy as well as the publication of two illustrated journals; Congo published in 1943 and Zanzibar in 1948.

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