by Anthony Weitz

• Oils on canvas
• 50cm by 50cm stretched canvas 
• 54.5cm by 54.5cm framed
• 2013
  

Anthony Weitz was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1953. His early influence was his artistically gifted father, who used to draw chalk pictures of medieval knights and WW2 battleships on the playroom blackboard for him to copy. By his own admission, Anthony's copies never looked quite as good as his dad's.

He studied advertising illustration at the Johannesburg College of Art. After a one-year break working in advertising, he returned to the college, and lectured in industrial presentation drawing, and rendering. In 1976 he moved back to Cape Town, teaching graphic design at the Ruth Prowse Art Centre. In 1977, having been granted a scholarship, he studied stone lithographic printmaking at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia. After completing his certificate there, and garnering an important award, he returned to Johannesburg to pursue a career in advertising art.

In 1989, he moved to Switzerland, to continue working as a freelance illustrator. In 2008 he moved to Malta, where he divides his time between maintaining his professional contacts and painting en plein air.

Artist’s Statement:

The perceptual process of the plein air painter involves far more than just unconscious application. All of the faculties come into play, your mood, your influences, your skills at that moment in time, your memory, and of course, your entire perception of the space and time around you. The plein air experience involves both the conscious and unconscious mind. The intensity and concentration of working on location is like a chess game between nature and the artist, who strives to bring interpretive vision and order to the visual chaos. The artist is playing in a pantomime called 'creation', which Professor Roger Scruton references when he talks about the act of painting being 'a moment of redemption'.