PRESS RELEASE
JOHN MEYER: A REMARKABLE JOURNEY - 50 YEARS AT EVERARD READ
Nov 6 – Nov 26, 2025
A Remarkable Journey, a solo exhibition by John Meyer.
Artists of any consequence have always provided a clear lens through which we, the viewers, are invited to minutely interrogate both the human condition and the planet we inhabit. Through erudite brush-strokes and insightful intellects, apples on tables have become much more than just fruit. Sunflowers in a vase, a lonely saloon at night. All simple images that have been elevated to the iconic and defined their era.
The most profound artists demand that we see the world through their eyes. Our relationships with our gods, our changing perceptions of beauty, and even our reactions to unspeakable cruelty have been profoundly guided by our greatest artists. This is clearly apparent with our perception of the landscapes that we inhabit. Gentle English hills with flint church spires emerging from oak trees under scudding clouds is the land of John Constable. The Hudson River at sunset is defined by Albert Bierstadt. Flat-top acacias marching towards a koppie under layers of building storm clouds – a scene that tugs at the viscera of all passing travellers who gaze with eyes informed by JH Pierneef.
Landscape painting and the way we view and analyse the beauty of South Africa has been dominated for decades by a giant of realism in this country: John Meyer. Meandering dusty tracks etch the arid vastness of Meyer’s Karoo landscapes. An old gate signals the start of someone else’s land.
Anyone who has spent time with John Meyer’s work finds it challenging to immerse oneself in the haunting beauty of the Karoo, the Hex River in autumn or a waterlily-clad wetland in KwaZulu Natal without remarking that John Meyer must have passed there before. Such is the power of a truly profound landscape painter.
Another aspect to Meyer’s restless intellect emerged early on in his career. Not only is John Meyer a consummate painter of scenes devoid of visible humankind, but his fascination with people and the subtlety of human inter-relationships demanded that people insinuated themselves increasingly into his art over the decades. Meyer has been the greatest portraitist in South Africa of his era. His extraordinary facility with painting the human form has evolved inexorably from formal portraiture into a series of fascinating paintings of people – people at play, under duress and in love. In Meyer’s Cape Town studio, this artist with prodigious energy and a never-ending fascination with the act of applying paint to canvas has created art that has made him the pre-eminent realist of his generation in South Africa.
We at Everard Read are so proud to host this exhibition. John’s work has been one of the defining aspects of the gallery for fifty years. A very rare relationship for the artist and all of us who work with him. This will be a long-remembered exhibition.
– Mark Read
