Christo Coetzee — Neo-Baroque artist
“Christo Coetzee is an assemblage and Neo- Baroque artist, closely associated with avant-guard movements of Europe and Japan during the 1950s and 1960s. The theorist Michel Tapie, art dealer Rodolphe Stadler, art collector and photographer Anthony Denney, and the Gutai group of Japan all played and important role and influence in Coetzee’s work.
Coetzee, from and early age, had a talent for drawing and the arts. After graduating from Parktown Boy’s High School he attended the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) from 1947 to 1950. It was here that Coetzee became part of the so-called Wits Group, along with other esteemed artists; including Larry Scully, Cecil Skotnes, Esme Berman, Nel Erasmus, Ruth Allen, Gordon Vorster and many others. After graduating with a Fine Art degree in 1951, Coetzee held his first solo exhibition, which was opened by John Paris, the then current director of the South African National Art Gallery.Funded by a Wits scholarship, Coetzee travelled to London in 1951 and married Marjorie Long the following year. When his wife returned to South Africa, Coetzee unhappily followed her six months later. He returned to London the end of 1953, without Marjorie. After being a sales assistant for a tobacco company in London, Coetzee eventually found work at Robert Savages’ framing business where he was able to stay in closer contact to young artists and the London art world. During this time, Coetzee met Anthony Denney, who would not only become his future long-term friend but also the person responsible for arranging Coetzee’s first solo exhibition in Europe, held in March of 1955 at the Hanover Gallery in London.”
