Bettie Cilliers-Barnard (1914 – 2010)

Betties Cilliers-Barnard, born in 1914 began her exploration of non-figurative forms in 1957. Before then, she had
been concerned at first with descriptive delineation of her subjects, later with analysis of the formal values of
obejective images.

Bettie was an artist who searched ceaselessly for creative ways to express her sense of the underlying, intangible
harmony of life. Coming from a literary background and trained as a teacher, she decided to pursue art studies
seriously when she was in her early thirties, travelling to both Antwerp and Paris, where she studied under Andre
Lhote. Since then, she held 53 solo exhibitions in 41 years. Cilliers-Barnard was one of the first South African
Artists to abandon representation for a totally non-figurative or abstract idiom, along with Nel Erasmus and
Douglas Owen Portway.

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