Doctoral Candidates: LaNitra Walker

Pictures that Satisfy: Modernist Discourses and the Politics of Race, Gender, and Nation in the Art of Irma Stern (1894-1966)

Dissertation Summary

My dissertation examines how German-Jewish South African artist Irma Stern's work underscores the international influence of German Expressionism on modern art and how her work provides insight into the underlying political and social forces that aid in the construction of art historical narratives in South Africa. By examining the different phases of Stern's career, my project contextualizes Stern's work within the modernist debates about racial classifications in South Africa.

Based on interviews and archival research completed in Germany, South Africa, and the United States, I argue that Stern's South African citizenship and German artistic training provided her with a unique social and political perspective with which to observe and paint South Africa's landscape and its people. Formal analysis and close readings of Stern's oil paintings, drawings, travel narratives, and watercolors is crucial in understanding how she used her artistic talents to record visual interpretations of South African culture history. As one of only a few internationally respected South African artists of the apartheid era, an examination of Stern's work and career allows us to develop a more complex understanding of how race, gender, and nation contributed to the development of modernism in South African art history.

Bio

LaNitra Walker is a doctoral candidate in art history with a certificate in African and African-American studies at Duke University. She received a Master's degree in art history from Duke University in 2002 and a B.A in art history and international relations from Stanford University in 1999. She expects to receive her Ph.D. in 2007.

Walker is the recipient of the Duke Endowment in the Humanities fellowship, a Duke-Free University of Berlin Exchange Fellowship, and a Smithsonian ten-week doctoral research fellowship at the National Museum of African Art.

Walker completed her dissertation fieldwork in Germany, England, and South Africa. From an early age, she was interested in South African history, and her four-month research trip to Cape Town confirmed that South Africa is a beautiful and fascinating country that everyone should visit. She also enjoys traveling with her husband, and they have visited more than a dozen countries together.

Walker has published in the Journal of Asian and African Studies and is a contributor to The American Prospect online magazine. Her dissertation and her work with SisterMentors fuel her interest in community and social activism. She is a native of southern California.