Marié Rautenbach Collection of Walter Battiss Materials 1974-1983 (MSS Acc 191)

Abstract

Renée Roos, Marié Rautenbach’s daughter, donated the correspondence (22 items), copies of sketches, invitations to Battiss exhibitions and photographs to the Unisa Library Archives in 2013. Marié Rautenbach, née Wium, was born on 13 September 1920. She graduated with a BA degree from the University of Stellenbosch in 1940 and soon afterwards started her career at the National Library in Pretoria. She purchased her first Battiss painting in 1970. From 1973 until she retired in 1980, Marié was employed as a librarian by the University of Pretoria. She met and befriended Walter Battiss through John Wickens, a fellow librarian and mutual friend.

The Marié Rautenbach Collection of Walter Battiss Materials (MSS 191) compliments the John Wickens Scrapbook of Walter Battiss Materials (MSS 140) in the Unisa Archives. There are many references and cross references to both Marié and John in these accessions. Together with the Walter Battiss - Dacre Punt Correspondence (MSS189), these Collections provide the researcher with some insight into the weird and wonderful life of the remarkable, talented, creative and enigmatic artist. Many of the Battiss letters are beautifully illustrated. He was a master calligrapher and his handwriting often varied from one letter to another. In his correspondence with Marié Rautenbach, Battiss wrote about experiences abroad, family, friends and even his impatience plant. He comes across as a kind and sympathetic friend - your letter consoles me that friendship can help cure. Battiss shared his thoughts on art and his Fook Island philosophy with Marié. The true artist knows more than the eye sees. Is the evidence of our own lives, of the birth and death of the flesh, not at once a reminder of our own flimsy material existence; and are the arts not the visible shadows of the invisible spiritual presences that inhabit temporal man.

The Marié Rautenbach Collection of Walter Battiss Materials (MSS 191) is of great research value to scholars interested in the life and artistic career of Walter Battiss. The flamboyant artist died in 1982 and Marié Rautenbach in September 2002.