Notes

Pig’s Head I, with its carving lines and pierced form, and Lithops, so beautifully and neatly reduced to its essential shapes, hint not only at the impressive range of Henry Davies’ refined, vanguard sculpture, but also his familiarity with the work of Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Constantin Brâncu?i. Davies trained at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg (1963-1968), a mid-century hotbed of modernism, where two of his most notable contemporaries, stylistically at least, were Peter Schütz and Keith Alexander. Davies taught in Salisbury before returning to his alma mater as Lecturer. The list of supervisees that were at some point under his sway is long and impressive, and includes, amongst many others, Peter Schütz, Juliet Armstrong, Walter Oltmann, Jeremy Wafer, Ian Calder, Virginia Mackenny and Bronwen Findlay.

Exhibited

Images of Wood: Aspects of the History of Sculpture in 20^th-century South Africa, 1989, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg.

Literature

Elizabeth Rankin (1989) Images of Wood: Aspects of the History of Sculpture in 20^th-century South Africa, Johannesburg: Johannesburg Art Gallery, illustrated in black and white on page 98.