Newsletter 1/21
Dear Friends, Did you know that doctors in Canada have started prescribing museum visits to their stressed patients? Read this article: Free art museum visits prescribed by Canadian doctors (leisureopportunities.co.uk). To us at the UCT Irma Stern Museum, this makes such sense – what better place for some renewal and re-thinking than a museum? And one of the favourite places for rest and inspiration this time of the year is the museum’s Secret Garden. With early spring, the Camellias and Azaleas are a show of pink and white, Cape Holly and Waterberry are pushing out green shoots, and Strelitzia are full of blooms.
Wood sculptures of Right Mukore and Mthobeli Aaron Bakana at the Museum
From mid-September 2021, the UCT Irma Stern Museum will host works by sculptor Right Mukore and crafter Mthobeli Aaron Bakana. This project is realised in collaboration with the Montebello Design Centre in Cape Town. Right and Aaron will be showing an oft-changing selection of work in the museum's Secret Garden for the coming months. Right Mukore studied art at Konimara School of Art in Zimbabwe and now works from Montebello Design Centre. Right uses power tools and hand-carving to create wood sculptures from felled trees – some of which are massive in size. The sculptures seem to be almost mystical beings
Celebrating Jonathan Fritz
Jonathan Fritz has tended to the Secret Garden at the museum for close to forty years. Warmly referred to by the team as “Uncle Jonathan, he is retiring this year. To celebrate and thank him, the team of the UCT Irma Stern Museum has put together a video. Thank you, Jonathan, for the joy your garden has brought to visitors and staff of the museum!
Exhibition Archive: Irma Stern Nudes, 1916–1965
Curated by Prof. Michael Godby. May–July 2021. We have compiled videos of the opening event with Prof. Lize van Robbroeck of Stellenbosch University's Visual Arts Department, and the exhibition, a chapter from the exhibition catalogue (and where to purchase it) and about the exhibition itself. The exhibition was opened at the UCT Irma Stern Museum on 26 May 2021, with a small group of friends, family and lenders there to celebrate the occasion. Sadly the COVID-19 restrictions at the time did not allow for a larger audience. This video is the opening address given at the event by Professor Lize van
Removing signs and opening doors
Talking about the possibilities of museums, an interview with Yentl Kohler, the new curator and educator of the UCT Irma Stern Museum Curator and Educator Yentl Kohler recently joined the UCT Irma Stern Museum staff. Director Nadja Daehnke had a conversation about the ambitions Yentl brings to her new post. ND: You have now been at the UCT Irma Stern Museum as Curator and Educator for all of one week. What I just loved is how you came with such enthusiasm, but also such practicality. In this week I saw how you are brimming with ideas and inspiration, but you also have
