Artist Database

Johannes Blatt was born in Germany but resided in German South-West Africa for most of his life. Blatt is considered one of the most important artists active in German South-West Africa, and is known primarily as a landscape, wildlife and portrait painter using oils, watercolour, various drawing media, and etching. Blatt trained in Axel Eriksson’s studio in Swakopmund and was encouraged to paint by Carl Ossmann. He went to Hamburg in Germany between 1922 and 1925 where he trained at the Schule am Lerchenfeld.

Blatt returned to South-West Africa and spent the rest of his life as a practicing artist and art teacher. He was the first artist in South-West Africa to produce etchings. He visited areas surrounding Swakopmund and made drawings of the landscape and wildlife which he used as preliminary studies for his impressionist style paintings. Johannes Blatt adopted a more expressionistic style when he moved to Cape Town in 1954, using bold contrasting colours and dramatic brush marks to create movement in his images. Blatt returned to Namibia in 1968 and continued to produce artwork until his death in 1972.

Blatt participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in West Germany, South Africa and Namibia. The Art Association SWA/Namibia in Windhoek held a Commemorative Exhibition in 1985 and in 2000 the Art Association Swakopmund held a Memorial Exhibition to honour Johannes Blatt’s contribution to art in the region.