Christo Coetzee Collection

 

Christo Coetzee was born 1929 in Turffontein, Johannesburg. He studied for a BA degree in fine Arts at the University of Witwatersrand. In 1951 he won a postgraduate scholarship to study in London for two years at the Slade School of Fine Art (Berman, 1979: 68). After London he went to Italy on a travelling scholarship in 1956 and 1959, he went to Japan on a study tour. He had his first solo exhibition in Cape Town in 1951 at the South African National Gallery and then his first solo exhibition internationally was in Hanover Gallery, London. He has also participated in group exhibitions in Europe and America. According to Ballot (1999: 1) Coetzee has been linked to avant-garde movements and “Art Informed”, “Assemblage” art and “Neo-Baroque” movements in Paris and other places internationally. His early paintings were focused mainly on figure studies, family groups and solo portraits. According to Stevenson and Viljoen (2001: 13), his still life paintings were imaginative and distinctive, e.g. his paintings of jugs and ornaments which would take on strange shapes. References: Ballot, M. 1999. Christo Coetzee. Human and Rousseau: Cape Town; Berman, E. 1979. Art and Artists of South Africa. A.A.Balkema: Cape Town; Stevenson, M & Viljoen, D. 2001. Christo Coetzee: Paintings from London and Paris 1954-1964. Fernwood Press: Vlaeberg.

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