Notes

Irma Stern attended the Venice Biennale in 1948. One of the art world’s most prestigious events, it opens in summer which is when Stern is most likely to have been there and captured this breathtaking view of the Grand Canal stretching all the way to the Giardini where the national pavilions have housed the exhibitions of participating countries since 1895.

The dramatic compositional lines of the bay lead the eye directly to the focal point of the painting, Santa Maria della Pietà, the one centre of calm in an otherwise surging composition where the water swells and even the houses appear to pitch as if viewed from a vaporetto or water taxi.

Noted for its remarkable ceiling frescoes by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, the earliest foundations of the church were laid in the fifteenth century but in 1745 it was designed and rebuilt by architect Giorgio Massari. The façade, only completed in the early twentieth century, is characteristic of the classical style.

From 1703 until 1740 the great Baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi taught violin, viola and English and was choir master here to the less fortunate children who were cared for by the charitable institution associated with the church – hence it is also known as the Church of Vivaldi.

The church faces the waterfront on the Riva degli Schiavoni in Castello along which may be found Venice’s most famous luxury hotels like the Danieli where the rich and famous congregate to see and be seen, sipping espresso or Prosecco.

Venice, known as The Queen of the Adriatic, clearly cast its spell over Stern. As an important centre of trade and commerce, ideally located between Western Europe and Asia, its prosperity sustained the arts from the Middle Ages, through the Renaissance and Baroque periods and into the present. To be invited to exhibit on the Venice Biennale or to represent one’s country in a national pavillion or exhibition is an affirmation of one’s status as an artist.

Stern exhibited on the Venice Biennale in 1950 and again in 1958, where she was the featured artist in the South African section. Her delight in the magic of Venice – its architecture, art locations, its expanses of water and its many gondolas – is recorded here with the artist’s characteristic passion.

Provenance

Acquired from the Joseph Wolpe Gallery, 1974

Literature

Marion Arnold, Irma Stern: A Feast for the Eye, Fernwood Press, 1995, page 91, illustrated in colour