pencil, pencil crayon and gouache

Artwork date: 1942
Signature details: signed and dated

(1)

31.5 x 27.5 cm; mounted in a woven raffia frame: 52 x 43 cm

Notes:

Irma Stern’s gouache of a young Watussi dancer was one of a series of works on paper capturing the spectacular royal celebrations of the Fête Nationale in Kigali, Ruanda-Urundi (as it was then called), in 1942. Such a vibrant portrait is unusual in that it records one of the very young male members of a troupe of Royal Watussi dancers, who were competing by exhibiting their dancing skill and prowess in the hope of becoming candidate pages to the Royal House.

Like her other works in this genre, it embodies vitality and movement created in part by the dynamic costume and headdresses made to emulate a lion’s mane, and thereby allude to the qualities of power associated with that animal. Various materials were used in the headdress, including white cattle tail switches and sisal, which was then embroidered with tiny Venetian glass seed-beads in a zig-zag motif that occurs both in the headdress of royalty and prestige Rwandan basketry. The staff-like object in his right hand, could be a dancing wand, or bow used in the novice dancers’ bow-and-arrow movements.

The extraordinary dancing, jumping and athletic abilities of Tutsi men was legendary, having been recorded by colonial observers from the 19th century. Coupled with extreme height and slender good looks, myths and stories of Nilotic ancestry and links to King Solomon intrigued early 20th-century colonial society. Stern responded to these prevailing views with a deep determination to paint the Watussi aristocrats and their retinue, whom she believed were part of this ancient and privileged lineage. For this purpose she arranged an elaborate journey to the Congo and Rwanda, and through her excellent connections was able to travel in relative comfort and security as a woman alone in tropical Africa in 1942, and again a few years later. One explanation for her restless exploration of Africa was the fact that travel to Europe was curtailed by World War II.

Stern rented a house on the shores of Lake Kivu in mid-1942 and recorded her impressions both in notes and letters to her friends as she prepared energetically for three forthcoming exhibitions of her work in the Congo and South Africa. The Fête Nationale was indeed one of the highlights of her stay, as it gave her an opportunity to meet Watussi royalty – the king, HM Mwami Rudahigwa III and his beautiful young bride, HM Rosalie Gicanda, their family, advisors and retinue – and provided the desired opportunity to paint them. It was here too that she witnessed the magnificent Watussi dancers performing before the royal enclosure in the dusty fair grounds at Kigali, and captured this endearing little dancer for posterity.

This delightful image is framed against a background of finely woven central African raffia cloth dyed in rich shades of purple, maroon, brown and cream. The artist used this device on other gouaches from Rwanda and Congo, presently to be seen in the Irma Stern Museum and Iziko South African National Gallery Collections. Similar raffia mats were included as atmospheric props in her famous ‘Zanzibar’ exhibitions in the Argus Gallery in Cape Town and the Gainsborough Gallery in Johannesburg from 1942 to 1947.

Carol Kaufmann

Sources:

Kaufmann, C. and Lewis, A. (eds) (2015). Brushing up on Stern: Featuring Works from the Permanent Collection of Iziko South African National Gallery. Cape Town: Iziko Museums of Cape Town.