FRAGMENTS OF AFRICA

Portfolio of 25 prints published by Battiss at The Red Fawn Press, Pretoria, 1951

Folio (460 x 325 mm)

The Portfolio comprises: Title page, Dedication and colophon, Preface signed by Herman J. Hahndick, Introduction signed by Battiss 'W.B', A laid down photograph of Battiss signed in pencil 'Photo by Hahndick' with a printed drawing opposite, a printed autobiography in the form of text within a border by the artist (reproduced and quoted below) – followed by 25 works in various mediums 23 of which are mounted folders with cut-out windows and 2 are mounted in folders without cut-outs, each titled on the mount in pencil by the artist. Contained in the original card folder and wrapper, titled in black and with a sketch in green on the upper cover.

The covers are badly frayed and torn at the spine with portions missing, the title folder is printed on hand-made John Dickinson water marked paper with deckled edges, some of the folders are a little browned but the mounted prints which are on a better quality paper are bright, a few of the folders have some spots of foxing along the backs.

Battiss writes in the autobiographical illustration, 'Since everything, however insignificant, exists for ever in various guises, I was merely re-born below the grey-red Boschberg mountains on the 6th of January 1906..…After seven years of inner disturbance I went suddenly to the Witwatersrand where I continued my art & worked for my degree. There in the gold dust I was a very poor white and taught for under £20 a month. I was desperately unhappy. After a year's further misery I came to the hill above the Aapies (sic) River to teach art & to marry Grace Anderson & later to share Giles. In 1937 I started looking at ancient paintings in re-discovered caves & rock-shelters. In 1938 I visited foreign habitations on the Thames, the Seine, the Dordogne, The Arno and the Adriatic Sea. In 1948 I was isolated in the Namib Desert & hunted with Onkoemeb the Bushman. In 1949 it was the crowded Alpine Po, the Tiber, and the beloved Seine once more.
1950 – Four of my paintings were shown on the XXV Biennale.
1951 – I sojourned on the Limpopo River & among white rocks, red rocks & black rocks.'