Strauss & co - 14 March 2016, Cape Town

476 Walter Whall BATTISS SOUTH AFRICAN 1 906-1982 Red Rock signed and dated May ‘49 oil on canvas 63 by 98,5cm R600 000–900 000 PROVENANCE Prof Murray Schoonraad EXHIBITED Pretoria Art Museum, Looking at Our Own: Africa in the Art of Southern Africa , 20 June to 15 August 1990, catalogue number 33. LITERATURE Karin Skawran. (ed.) (2005) Walter Battiss: Gentle Anarchist , Johannesburg: The Standard Bank Gallery. Illustrated in colour on page 106. Pretoria Art Museum label adhered to the reverse. Walter Battiss first encountered rock art when, in his early teens, he was introduced to the engraved petroglyphs near Koffiefontein where his family was living. It was in 1933 that he first saw rock paintings now dated from the early years of colonisation back several thousand years in time. He was captivated by this art form which was to play such a significant role in the development of his own art. Later that year he accidentally kicked up a stone which so entranced him that he traced its source to a river of beautiful water-washed stones including implements that would have been used by prehistoric artists. This profound experience led him to conclude, “It was my foot which spurred me onto this and I decided that pre-historic art in South Africa belonged to us, the artists. Fate had sent it to me to go into action as an artist and not as an archaeologist”. 1 Accompanying Battiss on a rock art excursion to the Barkly East district, Terence McCaw recalls Battiss sitting in a cave and exclaiming “This belongs to us. This is our beginning. This is where we move from!” 2 With great enthusiasm, Battiss continued his intensive research into South African rock art, documenting numerous local sites as well as visiting several prehistoric rock art sites in the south of France after consulting with the acknowledged authority, Abbé Breuil in Paris. His first book on the subject, The amazing Bushman , was published in 1939. Over the next few years he sought various ways to incorporate the style and content of what he was seeing on the rock faces into his paintings, linocuts, woodcuts and wood engravings. In 1948 Battiss visited the rock art areas of Namibia for the first time and hunted with the Heikum bushmen from Namutoni in the Etosha region. By this time Battiss had visited many of the major painted shelters and petroglyph sites in southern Africa, including those in Zimbabwe, the Eastern Cape and the Drakensberg area. His research culminated in the publication in 1948 of The artists of the rocks , which was to become a classis of rock art literature. A copy was presented to Pablo Picasso when Battiss made a visit to his Paris studio in 1949. After studying the images thoughtfully, Picasso enquired, “Tell me now Battiss, am I as good as your Bushman artists?” 3 His engagement with rock art was the catalyst in Battiss’s own move away from naturalism towards figurative abstraction. The insights he gained enabled him to approach his canvas as the bushmen had seen the rock face and treat it as an overall surface across which to arrange elements without being constrained by the one-point perspective of European art. Red Rock painted at this critical time in 1949 is a seminal work in the liberation from such conventional norms. Not only was the artist enabled to forge a path away from naturalism towards developing his own unique vision but this painting may be viewed as a key work in South African art, setting a new bench mark in art history. Eliminating light and shade in favour of bold colours applied flatly in clearly delineated areas, Battiss reveals his delight both in his subject and in his newfound approach to painting. 1. Murray Schoonraad. ‘Battiss and Prehistoric Rock Art’ in Karin Skawran and Michael Macnamara (1985) Walter Battiss . Craighall: AD. Donker Publisher. Page 41. 2. Ibid. Page 41. 3. Ibid. Page 49. 222