Author Description

Van der Wat emerged in the 1960s receiving critical recognition as she began to explore the dynamics of form and colour through painterly and later, post-painterly, geometric abstract compositions. Van der Wat is one of a handful of South African female artists from her generation who embraced abstraction, forging a unique place for herself in the story of South African art. Hannatjie van der Wat: IN RETRO - A Seventy-Year Career Survey (1943 - 2013) is the first comprehensive review of Van der Wat's art since her 1977 retrospective exhibition in Johannesburg. Bringing together more than a hundred works from public and private collections, the exhibition covers the different periods and various stylistic approaches in her career, beginning with her early formative and scholastic works dating from 1943. -- SMAC Art Gallery website.