STOREROOM SERIES

These are a few of my favourite things!

Since the opening of the Museum in 2005, visitors were overwhelmed and taken by surprise by a museum space filled with an extensive selection of Modern South African artists.

In the 60s, 70s and 80s the art collection of the Late Dr Anton and Mrs Huberte Rupert was known to travel extensively as part of locally and internationally acclaimed, carefully curated exhibitions. This rich history is now given the opportunity to be celebrated; with the Rupert Family’s collection seen at such institutions as Standard Bank Art Gallery, Javett Art Centre, Norval Foundation, Irma Stern Museum, Kunsthaus Basel and the Royal Academy in recent years. By revitalizing our exhibition content and broadening our audience engagement, we provide curatorial freedom to showcase some long-since unseen parts of the collection and engage new conversations.

Yet, since the museum’s reopening in 2019 with interventions in revisiting and interrogating conversations amidst the collection with other artists, collections and visiting exhibitions, one visitor request remained constant – when will these works be on display again? This request has been taken to heart, and to showcase the artworks not included in selected in-house and external exhibitions, the Storeroom Series is presented: Not just seen as highlights from the collection, but also to showcase the popularity of artists and artworks for visitors’ enjoyment.

The current rotation focuses on the faces and spaces Irma Stern encountered, mainly during the mid-1930s to the late 1940s, the highlight of her career known as ‘The Zanzibar Years’.

Fishing Boats, Madeira, 1931
Fishing Village, Madeira, 1931
Venice, 1937
Harbour Alicante, Spain, 1960
Sugar Harvesters, 1961
Fishers, 1963
The Bathers, 1965
Vineyard sketch, 1966
Still Life with Chrysanthemums, 1938
Still Life, 1942
Vase, 1953
Flowers and Fruit, 1965