Welgemeend August Art Month - 2019

85 Rain Queen 5/10 bronze on wooden base h: 72,5 cm Private Collection Rain King 7/10 bronze on wooden base h: 73 cm Private Collection Exhibiting in South Africa, 1968 to 1971, Richard Cheales wrote: With a ‘rain king’ and a ‘rain queen’ setting the theme in his small exhibition, Peter Haden stresses elongated vertical shapes in a section of his latest sculpture. In the rain ‘duo’ he gives a more dramatic interpretation of the small, chunky pieces that were such a feature in his last show, with monolithic shapes soaring upwards from the (in contrast) solid bases of the compositions. This style (with its suggestion of ‘roots’ in past, ancient times) has a strikingly decorative quality, faintly Egyptian, faintly primitive, the seated figures are conceived in a wholly abstract way – symbolic but, at the same time, aesthetically arresting. (’African Life in Haden’, The Star , 23 October 1969).