Vincent Art Gallery

Pieter van der Westhuizen was born in 1931 in Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa. He studied art at Unisa under Zakkie Eloff, Leo Theron, Robert Hodgsins and others.  In 1960 he worked under Alfred Krentz and in 1971 under Erik Laubscher. During 1979-1980 he attended the National Hoger Instituut voor Schone Kunst at the the Royal Academy of Arts in Belgium. In 1982 and 1985 he continued his studies at the Stedelijke Akademie in Ghent and the Ryks Centrum voor Grafieken Belgium.  During 1983 and 1985 he studied wood-block printing in Japan.

Born, as he puts it, “between the great drought and the Second World War”; Pieter discovered at a very young age that “the world I found myself in was not a comfortable one… At around the age of four I decided that this life was not for me. I began creating another word for myself – in pictures.”

The artist works in pastel, watercolour, ink, pencil, charcoal, other graphic media and lately started doing more works in oil. He is also well known for his hand-coloured etchings. His works comprise mainly landscapes, portraits, still life’s, figures and sometimes abstract pictures. He participated in numerous group- and solo-exhibitions and his work is represented in various private and cooperate collections in South Africa and overseas.

Today, Pieter’s works are found in private and state collections in South Africa, Britain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, China, Japan and Israel. Truly world-wide.

Pieter van der Westhuizen is widely regarded as one of the most popular artists in South Africa.