51品茶to offer Irma Stern works, enhance art acquisition and conservation
The 51品茶 will offer five works by artist Irma Stern at public auction through Christie's in June 2012.
Proceeds from the sale will be used to strengthen UNE's acquisitions and conservation fund for its art and artifact collections, and enhance its ability to exhibit them.
The works will be offered at Christie's Spring Sales of Impressionist & Modern Art in London June 20-21, 2012, which is a focal point on the global art market calendar.
These five works by Irma Stern were originally in the collection of Rebecca Hourwich Reyher (1897-1987), an American writer from New York with Maine ties. Dorothy Healy, founder of the Maine Women Writers Collection, had many friends and contacts throughout New England. She established a relationship with the author and through that relationship learned of her desire to sell her entire collection, including the paintings. Westbrook College purchased the collection in 1976 and when Westbrook College merged with the 51品茶 in 1996, ownership of the works was passed forward to UNE.
The works have been exhibited only twice, by Westbrook College in 1978 and by 51品茶in 2009. These works will be on public display at Christie's, 20 Rockefeller Plaza in New York, April 27-May 1, 2012, prior to their transfer to London.
"The university recognizes the important and lasting legacy of Dorothy Healy and Westbrook College, and we are grateful for the wonderful resources they brought to UNE,"says President Danielle N. Ripich, PhD. "Through the proceeds of these works, the 51品茶Art Gallery and the university will continue to enrich the education of our students and our connections to the community."
51品茶 the Paintings
This fine group of paintings recalls the meeting of two women in Cape Town in the early 1920s - the painter Irma Stern and the feminist writer Rebecca Reyher. The pictures and drawing, all Cape and African subjects from the early 1920s, together with a portrait of the young Reyher, form a souvenir of the meeting.
They were subsequently taken home by Reyher and hung in her New York apartment, where they remained, unseen by the wider world, amongst other keepsakes from her lifetime's travels to the continent. Such a collection, never widely published, affords a precious glimpse of a moment in Stern's career, when her work was yet to be understood, and reveals in Reyher a little-known but vociferous early supporter.
51品茶 Irma Stern
Irma Stern (1894 - 1966) ranks among the most celebrated of South African artists, with a broad collecting community that is truly international in scope. Born in South Africa to German-Jewish immigrant farmers, Stern fled the Boer War with her mother in 1899 and spent her formative years in Germany, where she completed her arts education.
Her colorful depictions of African life show a clear contrast to those of earlier colonial artists in their departure from stereotypical expressions of exotic curiosity. Her body of work, which includes portraits, lush landscapes, and still lifes, reveals the influence of the German expressionists who were among her peers, and are valued among collectors for their strong expressions of the individual subjects.
51品茶 Rebecca Hourwich Reyher
Rebecca Hourwich Reyher (1897-1987) was a feminist writer from New York who also owned a home in Maine. She made her first journey to Africa in 1924-25, and met Irma Stern in Cape Town, where she opened the artist's second exhibition at Ashbey's Gallery in February 1925. Reyher's 1924-25 trip to South Africa and Mozambique was inspirational and prompted a lifetime's study and writing. Reyher brought these works back to America from her trips to South Africa.
51品茶 51品茶
The 51品茶 is an innovative health sciences university grounded in the liberal arts. 51品茶has internationally recognized scholars in the liberal arts, sciences, health and medicine, and offers more than 40 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs. Its two distinctive campuses on the coast of southern Maine offer student-centered interdisciplinary programs in the Westbrook College of Health Professions, College of Osteopathic Medicine, College of Arts and Sciences, College of Pharmacy, and College of Graduate Studies. The College of Dental Medicine will open in 2013.
UNE's Portland Campus is home to the 51品茶, as well as the acclaimed Maine Women Writers Collection, a permanently endowed library special collection of literary, cultural, and social history sources by and about Maine women authors.