Start with the public institutions that hold the work

The most reliable starting point is the institution that physically owns the work. In South Africa that means the South African National Gallery in Cape Town and the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Both have online catalogues you can search by artist name. A catalogue entry usually gives the title, date, medium and current location. That is enough to confirm a work exists and to see what it looks like in a photograph, even when the image is small.

The Johannesburg Art Gallery has a particularly broad holding of twentieth century South African painting. The Cape Town institution is stronger on earlier periods but still holds Meintjes works. Search each catalogue separately. Do not assume one search covers both. The records are maintained independently and the image quality varies. A work listed in one catalogue may not appear in the other at all.

Use the digital imaging project for public works

The Digital Imaging Project of South African Art photographs works in public spaces and public collections. It is a useful supplement because it often shows works that a gallery catalogue lists but does not illustrate well. The project is strongest on works you can actually visit, which is a different kind of browsing than sitting at a screen. If a Meintjes painting is installed in a civic building or a public gallery, it is more likely to appear here than in a commercial database.

Treat this source as a map of where the work lives, not as a complete catalogue. It will not tell you what Meintjes painted in private collections. It will, however, help you build a mental geography of the work. That matters if you want to see the paintings in person rather than as thumbnails. The project is freely searchable and does not require a subscription.

Accept that no single source is complete

Meintjes worked across several decades and in more than one medium, and much of the work sits in private hands or in smaller regional collections. A comprehensive overview therefore requires more than one source, and it requires accepting gaps. If you are browsing to understand the range of the work rather than to find a specific painting, three to five sources is a realistic target. Fewer than that and you are seeing a fragment.

The practical problem is that online records are uneven. Some entries carry no image at all. Others show a detail rather than the full work. You can still use them, but you should read the record first and look at the image second. A title and date often tell you more than a poor photograph. If you want a fuller picture, combine the institutional catalogues with any exhibition history you can find and treat the result as provisional.