Christo Coetzee

Christo Coetzee was a South African assemblage and NeoBaroque artist closely associated with the avantgarde art movements of Europe and Japan during the 1950s and 1960s. Under the influence of art theorist Michel Tapi, art dealer Rodolphe Stadler and art collector and photographer Anthony Denney, as well as the Gutai group of Japan, he developed his oeuvre alongside those of artists strongly influenced by Tapis Un Art Autre , such as Georges Mathieu, Alfred Wols, Jean Dubuffet, Jean Fautrier, Hans Hartung, Pierre Soulages, Antoni Tpies and Lucio Fontana.

Christo Coetzee was born onMarch 1929 at 54 Biccard Street, Turfontein, Johannesburg to Josef Adriaan Coetzee and Francina Sofia Kruger . The family had been farming in the Colesberg district, but were forced by drought and the dilution of income by a large number of sons on the Coetzee family farm, Strydpoort, to seek an income in the rich mining economy of the Witwatersrand some time before Christos birth. Christos father developed a lung condition colloquially referred to as miners phthisis and moved to the building industry, where a talent for drawing became evident. Christo would later attribute his artistic talents to his father and his business acumen to his mother. Christos father died in 1939 and he was raised by his mother and two sisters, Gertruida and Johanna .

Source: Wikipedia