Somerset East is home to the restored Walter Battiss Art Gallery. Now the town hopes that the artist’s imaginary Fook Kingdom does for Somerset East what the Helen Martins’ Owlhouse has done for Nieu Bethesda. In 1998, a year after curator Emile Badenhorst took up the job in the Paulet Street building built as an officer’s mess for British officers in 1818, the back wall of the decaying building collapsed and the national monument was forced to close its doors to the public. Six years of restoration work followed before it opened again.
The national monument was run as a hotel by Walter Battiss’ parents in the early 1900s. In 1938, years after his family left the Battiss Private Hotel, Walter visited Europe where he was influenced by Pablo Picasso. Back in South Africa, he combined this with his interest in archaeology and ancient art rock art. He was guest of honour at the opening of the gallery in 1981, which also houses his books and historical photographs of his family. He died in August 1982, aged 76, from a heart attack while working at a winter retreat on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast.
Fook was the imaginary world he dreamed up from and for which he created realistic artifacts such as stamps, money, passports and drivers' licenses. His own colourful Fook passport is stamped with official stamps of Australia, Britain and Germany. The Island of Fook had fantastical birds, large-nosed kings, key-like dancing objects and dinosaur-like creatures, all created in his Pretoria home. Walter would hold court as King Ferd the Third aka Rex Insular Fookis, or the King of Fook. A Fookian flag flew in the garden whenever he was at home and he created his own Fookian language. Norman Catherine, the former East London artist, was his partner in creating the Fook artifacts.