Strauss & co - 20 May 2019, Johannesburg

94 192 Walter Battiss SOUTH AFRICAN 1906–1982 Calligraphic Forms signed oil on canvas 39,5 by 29,5 cm R120 000 – 160 000 193 Richard Penn SOUTH AFRICAN 1976– Unknown Physics 8 signed and dated 18 on the reverse oil on canvas 100 by 100 cm R80 000 – 100 000 LITERATURE cf. Warren Siebrits (2016) Walter Battiss: I Invented Myself: The Jack Ginsberg Collection, Johannesburg: The Ampersand Foundation. Similar works illustrated on pages 55 and 77. ‘What happened to me was this – I had been to Driekopseiland in Griqualand West, and there I found strange drawings and strange symbols on the rocks. I had seen hundreds of them, and I had quite an itch to make my own kinds of things. Now what happened was that I filled my sketchbook with them, thousands of them, all kinds of things and then I had the idea to make my own special kind of writing’ 1 1. Walter Battiss, ‘Wanted: A History of Art in South Africa’, Fontein, 1960, pages 8 and 9.