Artist Database

The multi-award-winning artist Neil Rodger studied first at the Michaelis school of art at the University of Cape Town and later at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. He travelled widely in the United Kingdom, Europe and the USA but lived much of his adult life in the Eastern Cape, teaching in the Fine Art departments at both Rhodes University, Grahamstown, and the Port Elizabeth Technical College. He was a member of the Grahamstown Group, founded in 1964 by Brian Bradshaw, the then head of the Fine Art Department at Rhodes, and he exhibited along with fellow members including Bradshaw, Robert Brooks, Hilary Graham and Noel Hodnett, among others. Rodger’s work resists easy classification – his oeuvre includes landscape, animal and figural studies, and his style ranges from naturalism to hyper-realism and surrealism. The pursuit of a universal and timeless harmony dominates his work throughout his career.