Artist Database

Terence McCaw was born in Pilgrims Rest in present-day Mpumalanga. In the early 1930s, he attended the Wits Technical Art School and then went to London, where he enrolled at Heatherley School of Fine Art and then the Central School of Art in 1935. He studied alongside fellow South African artists Freida Lock and Gregoire Boonzaier and the three of them participated in exhibitions with the London Group. After returning to South Africa, he became a founding member of the New Group in 1937. McCaw served as a war artist during World War II, after which he settled in Hout Bay. McCaw painted a range of subjects from Cape harbours to fishing boats, landscapes to still lifes. He was greatly influenced by Paul Cézanne and the Post-Impressionist principles of the application of light and colour. McCaw contributed significantly to Cape Impressionism.