The painter Machiel Brandenburg was born in 1907 in Rotterdam, where he also attended the academy. After living in Hilversum for a number of years, he left for South Africa in May 1952. His early work from the thirties shows a similarity in style with the New Realism, which flourished in our country in the twenties and thirties. Brandenburg was also a member of the Amsterdam painters' association De Brug for some years, in which these realists were united. He preferred to paint landscapes, nudes and still lifes. He taught at the Michaelis School of Fine Art and the Jan van Riebeeck High School in Cape Town. After 1971 he could no longer paint due to the consequences of a stroke.