(b. 1941 Cape Town, South Africa – d. 2013 Port Elizabeth, South Africa)

‘I believe that pictures rarely benefit from commentary by the artist. In general I would say that whilst most good art has been extremely difficult and taxing in the making, it is a prerequisite of great art that this is not evident – that it appears effortless or even inevitable.’

 Neil Rodger was born in 1941 in Mowbray, Cape Town. The artist lived and worked in the Eastern Cape, where he thrived on the austerity and solitude of the region until he died in 2013. It seemed that this environment was conducive to the enigmatic silence so characteristic of his finest work. None of the currently favored classifications apply to his work – rather, he belongs with those individual realists who have, throughout the modern era, defied categorisation. What he pursued is a universality, timelessness and harmony that can be found in all great art from whatever period or place. It is a measure of his conviction of the continuity of great art that he remained unmoved by revolutions, fashions or attitudes. Regular trips to Europe reinforced his cultural connections, which are to the Mediterranean by inclination and to the Netherlands by training. His work covers an unusually wide range of content and he worked in a variety of media in both painting and sculpture. The vehicle for this content was also in a perpetual state of flux, so that ever-new perceptions were evinced, be it of the portrait, of the nude, of the landscape, of the animal painting. For this artist, the quest for refinement and distillation never ceased.

BIOGRAPHY

1968 -1974    

Member of the Grahamstown Group

1966 -1967    

Part-time lecturer in drawing and painting at the Cape Technical College

1967                 

Art Teacher, Wynberg Boys High School, Cape Town

1968 -1974    

Lecturer in Fine Art, Rhodes University

1974 -1981    

Lecturer, then a senior lecturer in fine art, Port Elizabeth Technical College

1981                 

Full-time artist

1980                 

Member of the selection board of the King George VI Art Gallery, Port Elizabeth

1963-6            

Travelled throughout Europe

1971                 

Worked and traveled in United Kingdom, Netherlands and Spain

1986                 

Worked and traveled in United States of America and England

1987                 

Texas, United States of America where he did some portraits

1988                 

United Kingdom and Switzerland painting portraits

EDUCATION

1961-63 & 1966           

Michaelis School of Fine Art, Cape Town

1963-66                          

Rijks Academie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam

1981-82                           

Rhodes University, Master’s Degree in Fine Art (cum laude)

AWARDS

1963 

Max Michaelis (prize for painting)

1965 

Merit Award (painting) Rijksakademie

1982 

Five Roses Young Artist of the Year, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2021   A Retrospective, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2000   Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

1989   Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

1982   Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

1982  Grahamstown Settlers Monument Arts Festival, South Africa

1976  Atlantic Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

1975  Gallery 82, Bloemfontein, South Africa

1973  Johan Carinus Art Centre,  Grahamstown, South Africa

1968  Rhodes University (first of six solo exhibitions), Grahamstown, South Africa

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2018         People and Portraiture, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2017         Reality Check, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2012         Winter, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2011         15, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2009         The Great South African Nude, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

1968-74 Regular group shows with the Grahamstown Group throughout South Africa

COLLECTIONS

George Municipal Collection

Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Gallery, Port Elizabeth

SA National Gallery, Cape Town

University of Pretoria

University of Cape Town

Opera House, Port Elizabeth

William Humphreys Art Gallery, Kimberley