Artist Database

John Kramer was born in Worcester, Western Cape, in 1946 and attended the Hugo Naude Art Centre. He graduated from the University of Cape Town’s Michaelis School of Fine Art in 1968, winning the Michaelis Prize, and has remained in the city ever since. He began working in the Exhibitions department at the South African Museum (now under Iziko) in 1970. Kramer continued to paint throughout his career; when he retired in 2002, it was to pursue painting full-time. The subjects of his realistic works are vignettes of quintessential small-town South Africa – portraits of buildings, petrol stations, and local shops. Devoid of living elements, Kramer’s paintings are frozen in time, a bygone memory cast in soft light.

Kramer’s works are in many public collections such as the Iziko Museums of South Africa, Sanlam, Durban Art Gallery, and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum in Gqeberha.