Strauss & co - 4 June 2018, Johannesburg

144 185 Henry Davies SOUTH AFRICAN 1944– Pig’s Head I carved wood, mounted on a stone base height: 39,5 cm R20 000 – 30 000 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 Brâncuși. 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 Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, Images of Wood: Aspects of the History of Sculpture in 20th-century South Africa , 1989. LITERATURE Elizabeth Rankin (1989). Images of Wood: Aspects of the History of Sculpture in 20th-century South Africa , Johannesburg: Johannesburg Art Gallery, illustrated in black and white on page 98.