Vivian Hubert van der Merwe was born in Cape Town, South Africa. His earliest work demonstrated clear artistic prodigy, despite a lack of early art tuition. In 1980, he completed his undergraduate studies under Stanley Pinker at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, obtaining his Master of Fine Arts degree in 1983. Apart from a series of politically motivated anti-apartheid works from 1973–74, his early works (1976–81) expressed an aptitude for high realism—a contemporary tribute to his Dutch and Flemish heritage.

After the 1970s, Vivian’s painting became increasingly abstract, with a gradual, conscious deconstruction of the rules, norms, and conventions of representationalism. This increasing preoccupation with the structural, spatial, abstract, and visceral realities of painting was a clear expression of his growing focus on form in art. These works are infinitely more than mere Modernist revisionism; they are eloquent syntheses of classical and contemporary form in painting.

While he continues to paint figurative still lifes, in later abstract work the still-life objects are no longer obvious. They exist as highly refined residual or structural elements, resonating discreetly through shape, colour, light, and texture. Despite an eclectic and somewhat postmodernist reaffirmation of Eurocentric precedents, his art remains difficult to place within a particular stylistic category. It has been said that “artistically, he occupies a place somewhere beyond Morandi and Ben Nicholson.”¹

While other commentators have pointed to the influence of Kazimir Malevich, Antoni Tàpies, Parisian Modernism, and African artefacts, Vivian’s unrelenting concern with form locates his work outside both the postmodern orbit and the Eurocentric mainstream.


“He is acutely aware of the long history of the concept of form in art, as well as in philosophy and theology, which dates back to ancient Greek times and still plays a crucial role in modern science, contemporary aesthetics, and theory. Despite this fact—or perhaps precisely because of it—his art is predicated on the possibility of the rediscovery of the true meaning of form in that silent realm beyond contemporary preoccupations with the semantics of language. For this reason, Vivian eschews politically engaged or ‘narrative’ art in favour of the genre that allows him the greatest freedom and experimental range with regard to formal or structural possibilities: namely, the still life. Paradoxically, however, instead of proving to be merely sterile formalism, his treatment of form establishes its autonomy in a way that does not leave our moral sensibility untouched. In the final analysis, therefore, his works are a powerful reminder that art opens up a fissure in the obviousness of the everyday—an opening within which new possibilities dislodge what is merely given.”²

In response to Vivian’s major retrospective exhibition at Stellenbosch University Museum in 2022, Zoe Storrar Molteno wrote:


“Vivian van der Merwe will go down in the history of South African art as one of its most important painters. His work is deeply considered, refined, strong, and monumental, and from the perspective of postmodern painting internationally, he will be hard to supersede. His work translates the classical virtue of gravitas into a painterly whole that shifts between painted reality and sculptural force. The image asserts itself as an entity, contained by the unfailing presence of the format. The classical stillness of Vermeer, the palette of Rembrandt, the sometimes playful balance of coloured, contained spaces in a Mondrian, the flattening of shapes à la Ben Nicholson, the delicacy and whimsy of Klee, the intuitive precision of Josef Albers’ saturated colour, with a deep deference to Henri Matisse—all these elements come together in still, massive wholes which encapsulate that most prized pictorial and spatial quality in painting: that of monumentality. "

"Monumentality is the quality that Picasso achieved in his portrait of Gertrude Stein (1909). Stein envelops the space she occupies; she is rock-like and weighty. It is the quality of monumentality in Giotto’s subjects—who seem to occupy a stage-like space—that separates the intersecting flat planes of Byzantium from the perspectival and mathematical conception of pictorial space of the Renaissance. Monumentality arises through three-dimensional mass being given form by our sense of weight and gravity. It is the sense of substance we grasp in everyday life. The immutability and certainty of these monumental forms evoke a quality of calm and composure; they impart a sense of immense stillness. This confident expression of being or existence is played out against a vivid record of African light: strong, clear, streaming, plane-defining light.”³

Since 1995, Van der Merwe has lived and worked in Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2025
'Form | Silence', EBONY/CURATED, Franschhoek, South Africa

2013
'Form | Stilte', Stellenbosch University Museum, Stellenbosch, South Africa

2006
'The Human Figure, Drawings', Grande Provence Gallery, Franschhoek, South Africa

2001-2002
'Paintings and Drawings', GUS Gallery, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

2001
'Paintings and Drawings’, Inaugural exhibition of Tokara Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa

1998
‘Mid-career Retrospective’, Dorp Street Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa

1992
Exhibition of drawings, Central Art Studio, Port Elizabeth, South Africa

1986
Exhibition of paintings, AVA Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

1985
Exhibition of paintings, EPSFA Gallery, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Exhibition of paintings, Wellington College Gallery, Wellington, South Africa
Exhibition of paintings, GUS Gallery, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

1984
MFA graduation exhibition, Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town, South Africa

1980
Exhibition of drawings, University of Cape Town Gallery, South Africa

1979
Performance Piece: South African College of Music, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
Interdisciplinary installation, Arena Theatre, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

1977
Large-scale land artwork, Caledon district, Western Cape, South Africa


SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2025
EXPO Chicago, EBONY/CURATED, Chicago, United States of America
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, EBONY/CURATED, Cape Town, South Africa

2024
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, EBONY/CURATED, Cape Town, South Africa

2023
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, EBONY/CURATED, Cape Town, South Africa

2013
‘Back to the Future. Abstract Art in South Africa. Past and Present’, SMAC, Stellenbosch, South Africa

2008
’10 Philosophical Questions’, Stellenbosch University Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
‘Cabinet Reshuffle’, Curated by Julia Meintjes, Tokara Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa

2001, 2002, 2005
SPIT I, II & III Exhibitions, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South
Africa

2000
The Art of Drawing (national exhibition), Dorp Street Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa

1999
Exhibition of four South African artists’ work, GUS Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
The Sutherland Experience, Worcester Art Gallery, Worcester, South Africa
Stellenbosch Gallery, Annual Salon, Stellenbosch, South Africa

1997
Invitation exhibition, Johannes Stegmann Gallery, Bloemfontein University, Bloemfontein, South Africa

1996 – 1999
Beeldende Kunste Personeel exhibitions, Cape Town, South Africa

1996
Guild Gallery selected artists’ exhibition, Pretoria, South Africa

1993
Commemorative exhibition: 120th year of Faculty of Art & Design, Nelson Mandela University, Gqeberha, South Africa

1992: GAP exhibition, King George VI Art Museum, Gqeberha, South Africa

1991
Exhibition of works nominated for Vista University public commission, Pretoria, South Africa

1990
Inaugural exhibition of the Cuyler Gallery, Gqeberha, South Africa

1988
Artists for Democracy, Walmer Civic Centre, Gqeberha, South Africa
Volkskas Bank Atelier exhibitions, South Africa

1986 – 1991
Art Faculty staff exhibitions, Nelson Mandela University, Gqeberha, South Africa

1986
Emerging South African artists, Gallery 709, Cape Town, South Africa

1985
Everard Read exhibition, Johannesburg, South Africa

1984 – 2007
George XVI annual exhibition of South African art, Strydom Gallery, George, South Africa

1984
Inaugural exhibition of Battswood Art Centre, Cape Town, South Africa
Volkskas Bank Atelier exhibitions, South Africa

1981
New Names exhibition, South African Association of Arts, Cape Town, South Africa

1978
Inaugural exhibition of the Watershed Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

COLLECTIONS

The South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
University of Cape Town Collection, Cape Town, South Africa
University of Stellenbosch Collection, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Nelson Mandela University, Gqeberha, South Africa
Vista University; Gqeberha, South Africa
ABSA Bank Collection, South Africa
De Beers Collection, South Africa
SASOL Collection, South Africa
Telkom Collection, South Africa
Cologne Reinsurance Company Art Collection, Cologne, Germany
Collection of the late Jacques Derrida, Paris, France