Welgemeend August Art Month - 2019

82 2 Peter Haden 1939–1997 Almost Forgotten Peter Haden was one of the prestigious group of artists mentored and promoted by gallerist Egon Guenther. Along with Edoardo Villa, Cecil Skotnes, Sydney Kumalo, Ezrom Legae, Hannes Harrs, Giuseppe Cattaneo and Cecily Sash, Haden benefited from Guenther’s tutelage and the exposure that high-profile exhibitions at Guenther’s Linksfield gallery afforded. Despite the high quality of his works, very little is known or has been written about Peter Haden. There is no reference to him in Frieda Harmsen’s Looking at South African Art (Van Schaik, 1985), in Grania Ogilvie’s The Dictionary of South African Painters and Sculptors (Everard Read, 1988) or in Elizabeth Rankin’s Images of Metal (Witwatersrand University Press, 1994). In Europe, where he exhibited regularly, he is hardly more well known. This may be in part because most of his works are in museums, public institutions and private collections, and very few of his sculptures have ever appeared on the secondary market or been sold at auction. Hopefully these exhibitions, hosted by Strauss & Co in South Africa, will raise awareness of Haden’s beautiful and often ‘quirky’ sculptures and establish his reputation as a unique and gifted South African and International artist. Professor Gavin Watkins, Sydney, May 2019