Notes

Thanks to Gavin Watkins for assistance with cataloguing this lot.

Very little of Haden's early life can be pinned down precisely other than that he was born in 1939 and grew up in Johannesburg. His cousin Sheila Jarzin recalls that he spent some time in the studio of sculptor Ernest Ullmann, and perhaps that is where he learned the basics of his craft. From 1968 Haden was represented by Johannesburg gallerist Egon Guenther, until he emigrated to Switzerland in 1971. The sculpture Batman – the title referring to the bat-like wings of the figure rather than the cartoon character of the same name immortalised by Christian Bale – of which the present lot is number 3 of a planned edition of 10, was produced in 1970, too late to appear on any of the three exhibitions Haden had while living in South Africa – at the Lidchi Gallery in 1965 and the Egon Guenther Gallery in 1968 and 1969. It belatedly made its first public appearance in this country only this year, at a retrospective exhibition of the sculptor's work held at the Strauss & Co gallery in Houghton and at Welgemeend in Cape Town.

Exhibited

Strauss & Co, Johannesburg, Almost Forgotten, 16 July to 31 July, 2019.

Strauss & Co, Cape Town, Almost Forgotten, 1 August to 31 August, 2019.

Literature

Gavin Watkins (2019) Almost Forgotten: Peter Haden, 1939 to 1997, Johannesburg: Strauss & Co. Other casts from the same edition illustrated on the cover and on pages 24 and 25.