Notes

Although prominently exhibited since his death, very little is known about this undated work by Walter Battiss. His transformation of this functional object into a sculptural piece is nonetheless consistent with the arc of his biography. Celebrated as a painter, much of Battiss’s early influence hinged on his research and writing about petroglyphs and cave paintings. Starting with The Amazing Bushman (1939), which he self-published through his Pretoria-based Red Fawn Press, Battiss wrote and additionally supervised the production of numerous books. These publications, produced using analogue technologies such as the typewriter, ranged from scholarly tomes like The Artists of the Rocks (1948) to the autobiographical artist book Limpopo (1965). Battiss was also a distinguished public intellectual, his journalism often appearing in specialist magazines like Lantern (SA) and Studio International (UK). He was a patron of the short-lived art journal Fontein (1961), his introductory remarks to the launch issue praised as “vigorous, sensitive and thoughtful,” which is a fair assessment of his writings in general.¹ In 1966, following his appointment as the first professor and head of the Department of History of Art and Fine Arts at UNISA two years earlier, Battiss founded the scholarly art journal De Arte. A distance-based learning university, UNISA lecturers had to produce typed material for student guides. Karin Skawran, the founder of UNISA’s fine art department and a protégé of Battiss, passed this obligation to her mentor.² While Battiss remained a prolific author and letter writer after his retirement from teaching in 1971, his correspondence from this period was written in elegant freehand or cryptic symbols from his personal Fook Island script. Freed of the strictures of a salaried life, Battiss travelled and, in his studio, pursued artistic experimentation. This sculptural piece anticipates that newfound freedom and his later mischief as “King Ferd the Third”.

According to Stephan Welz who sold this remarkable work at auction on 27 August 1990: "It amazed and amused me then as it still does. Battiss was just so far ahead of his time, so much so that few people in 1990 appreciated it as a work of art thus my placing it as frontispiece to my book, Art at Auction in South Africa: The Art Market Review 1969 to 1995. How times have changed."

1. Jewish Affairs, May 1961, p.33
2. Lantern, January 1984, p.79

Exhibited

Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, Gentle Anarchist, 20 October to 3 December 2005

South African National Gallery, Cape Town, Dada South?, 12 December 2009 to 28 February 2010.

Literature

Stephan Welz. (1996) Art at Auction in South Africa: The Art Market Review 1969 to 1995, Johannesburg: Art Link (Pty) Ltd. Illustrated in colour on the frontispiece.

Philippa Hobbs. (2005) Walter Battiss: Gentle Anarchist: An Educational Supplement. Johannesburg: Standard Bank. Illustrated in colour on page 5.