Celebrated South African artist Walter Meyer has been stabbed to death‚ allegedly by someone very close to him.

Northern Cape police confirmed on Wednesday that the 52-year-old Upington-based painter died two days before Christmas.

Provincial police spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Dimakatso Mooi said: “It is alleged that on 22 December 2017‚ the victim was stabbed with a sharp object when he was involved in a quarrel with the suspect. A case of murder was opened and the 29-year-old suspect was arrested.”

Mooi said the suspect appeared briefly in the Upington Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday and is expected to apply for bail on Friday. “The police investigation continues‚” said Mooi.

Meyer‚ who was born in Aliwal North in the Eastern Cape‚ showcased his work as far afield as Germany‚ New York and Namibia. He counts Power Corporation‚ Canada‚ the Rupert Foundation and South African Reserve Bank among a long list of collectors of his work. His website is also brimming with positive reviews.

“He is widely celebrated as possibly the finest painter of distinctly South African landscapes that this country has yet produced‚” Ivor Powell wrote in the Sunday Times.

Ruth Jacobsen wrote in Business Day: “These paintings are extraordinarily truthful‚ not merely to a catalogue of factual detail‚ but to profoundly experienced reality. Collectively they speak of the integrity of the artist’s purpose.”