Johannes Meintjes

b. 1923 — d. 1980

Meintjes was a painter that enjoyed tremendous public support for his art since early age and also received international acclaim as an author later on. He is a well known historian and one of South Africa's most versatile artists. The fame he enjoyed as a 21 year old artist is unequalled in the South African history of art. Esmé Berman wrote in her authoritative Art & Artists of South Africa that 'the spectacular suddenness with which Johannes Meintjes catapulted to the headlines during the last years of WW2 is a phenomenon seldom equalled in SA cultural history. Before he was 22 years old the intense young artist enjoyed the kind of public adulation which was later reserved for youthful idols of the pop-music world'. Johannes Meintjes died in 1980 and had established himself as a major South African painter and writer. Apart from numerous articles and smaller literary works, he had published 35 books, amongst them authoritative works on South African history. He had painted more than a thousand canvases, produced dozens of sculptures and exhibited in all South Africa's major galleries - sometimes alone and sometimes in the company of artists such as Alexis Preller, JH Pierneef, Gerard Sekoto, Irma Stern, Maggie Laubser and Walter Battiss. Meintjes' work reflects something of the naivety of the African artist… a dimension beyond the purely European and his canvases, painted with the knowledge born out of centuries of European experience, speak with the voice of Africa. Meintjes once said: 'Mine is the vision…sprung from the soil of Africa and I have given it in a personal statement which may find a response in the heart and imagination of another generation.' 'There is the Africa of the past and there is the Africa of the present. I am concerned here with what I feel is eternally Africa, yesterday, today and tomorrow, untouched by the vagaries of men'. Johannes Meintjes, SA Panorama, 1960 Collections: Amathole Museum, King William's Town Ben Jaffe Art Collection, Cape Town Chamber of Mines Art Collection, Johannesburg Edrich Art Gallery, Stellenbosch Harry Oppenheimer Art Collection, Johannesburg Hester Rupert Art Gallery, Graaff-Reinet Ivan Katzen Collection DinksFãStan Private Collection Julius Gordon Africana Centre, Riversdal Julius Malema Meintjes Room, Molteno High School, Molteno Molteno Municipality Music Museum, Bloemfontein National Afrikaans Literary Museum and Research Centre, Bloemfontein National English Literary Museum, Grahamstown National Museum, Bloemfontein Pretoria Art Museum, Pretoria Queenstown Municipality Art Collection Rembrandt van Rijn Art Foundation, Stellenbosch South African National Art Gallery, Cape Town SAMRO Art Collection, Johannesburg Sanlam Art Collection, Cape Town Sasol Art Collection, Johannesburg South African Broadcasting Corporation Art Collection, Johannesburg South African Reserve Bank, Pretoria Tshwane Metropolitan Art Collection, Pretoria University of Johannesburg (RAU) Art Collection, Johannesburg University of Pretoria Art Collection, Pretoria University of Stellenbosch Art Collection, Stellenbosch University of the Witwatersrand Art Collection, Johannesburg War Museum of the Boer Republics, Bloemfontein Willem Annandale Art Gallery, Lichtenburg/Ditsobotla William Humphreys Art Collection, Kimberley Numerous private collections worldwide