Charles Ernest Peers

Charles Ernest Peers (1875, Belfast, Northern Ireland – 1944, Higgovale, Cape Town, South Africa) was a South African artist.

Peers spent his youth in Liverpool, England, where he recorded the shipping activity on the Mersey. He wished to become a naval architect, but could not afford to study professionally. He spent a brief period at the Liverpool School of Art before settling in South Africa in 1904.

Peers was elected a member of the South African Society of Artists in 1905, and became chairman of the South African Fine Arts Association. He won the Cape Times poster competition in 1924, and became a member of the South African Institute of Art in 1926. Peers subsequently was president of the Owl Club in 1934, president of the K Club in 1935, was invited by the New Group to participate in their first exhibition in 1938, and subsequently was elected President of the group, an office he held until his death.

Peers made a living as a chromo-lithographer with various printing companies, including Galvin & Sales in Cape Town. He illustrated The Seven Wonders of South Africa by Hedley Chilvers and The Coast of Hermanus by Will Costello. He also produced a series of auto-lithographic cigarette cards for the United Tobacco Company album Our Land / Ons Land (1939), and several illustrated calendars during the 1930s for the Vacuum Oil Company.

Peers worked mainly in watercolor, but also produced oils and pastels as well as pencil drawings, etchings, linocuts, and lithographs. He concentrated on landscapes, architecture, and maritime subjects.