OBITUARY: HENRI VERGON (1968-2020)
ART DEALERS leave fingerprints, little traces and impressions of their enthusiasms that remain – like filigree watermarks, not stains – long after their deaths. In the case of Henri Vergon, the Brussels-born dealer who died at age 51 of a heart attack at his home in Johannesburg, hints and suggestions of his vital presence will remain evident for decades to come.
Best known for his Afronova platform – a roaming dealership and fair-based enterprise that initially existed as a physical gallery space in central Johannesburg – Vergon’s flair for promotion helped establish the careers of two generations of talents, notably Billie Zangewa, Lebohang Kganye and Phumzile Khanyile.
Much like his predecessors, the European émigrés Madame Fernande Haenggi, Egon Guenther and Reinhold Cassirer, all formidable forces in the history of art in Johannesburg, Vergon made it his mission as a dealer to expand cultural tastes and
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