Notes

Guy du Toit’s hares have a lightness of being – they dance, they fly, they sit pondering their thoughts. They are like quick sketches in the landscape, something glimpsed out the corner of the eye, like a flash of truth.
- Wilma Cruise

Many of Guy du Toit’s playful and endearing hares are fixed in everyday poses: they recline, skip, daydream, cartwheel, lounge, drink and embrace together. While the present lot is imbued with the same sense of charm, mischief and verve, it also riffs on Henry Moore’s elegant, august and monumental bronze, King and Queen. Conceived in 1952, Moore’s sculpture showed two seated forms, each enrobed and wearing an ingenious, symbolic crown. Thinking back on these figures, Moore revealed that they had been inspired by Ancient Egyptian sculptures of male and female pairs, as well as the fairy tales he had read to his daughter, Mary.

Cast to a very similar scale as Moore’s work, du Toit reimagined the monarchs using his signature hares. The simplified forms are seated on a humble bench with their long ears overlapping. Evoking a mood of intimacy, calm and unity, the king gently holds the hand of his queen.

Exhibited

Everard Read, Johannesburg and Cape Town and London, Staring Straight to the Future, 3 to 23 April 2020, another cast from the edition exhibited.

Literature

Carla Crafford (2018) Hare's an Idea - Guy du Toit, Pretoria: Carla Crafford, the sculpture in progress in the studio illustrated in colour on page 63 and 71.