Piet van Heerden was born in Malawi and resided in South Africa from 1927. Mainly self taught but did study briefly under Hugo Naude. He gave part-time classes at the Michaelis School of Fine Art. He was a painter of landscapes, figures and portraits working in oil, ink, wash and pencil.

Van Heerden has held 17 solo exhibitions in South Africa and also exhibited at the Tate Gallery, London in the South Africa Art Exhibition in 1948. The influence of Hugo Naude and Pieter Wenning is visible in his work.

His landscapes have great mood and his use of light renders a very African landscape feeling, often referred to as Cape Impressionism.