Chris Tugwell (1938) was born in Durban.  Apart from private lessons he received in his formative years from established painters in Natal, he had no formal art training.  Yet, Chris says that art has been the driving force throughout his life.

His earlier paintings were mainly seascapes with figures, executed while living in Ramsgate at the KwaZulu Natal South Coast.  At the age of 20 Chris moved to Johannesburg to earn a living as a painter in the city of gold.  He attained a certain measure of success in a very short time, but his driving ambition to make his mark as one of South Africa’s leading artists did not rest with painting seascapes and capturing the brilliant light of the sun-drenched Transvaal highveld.

A year after moving to the former Transvaal (Gauteng), Chris opened his first art gallery in Brooklyn, Pretoria.  Today Chris is a household name throughout South Africa, both as artist and as dealer of repute handling the work of many prominent South African artists.