Christie's to auction Southeast Asian and Indian art

JAKARTA (JP): Southeast Asian art is becoming more and more popular among ardent art collectors in Asia and even worldwide.

For Indonesian art collectors who want to add to their collections, on the 1st of April, Christie's Singapore will offer important Southeast Asian pictures and 20th Century Indian Pictures.

Southeast Asian art had its first sale in Singapore in l994, and it will be entering its 8th year and includes exceptional works from Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines. This category will present the influence, both Western and Eastern, which is a distinct feature of Southeast Asia since the colonial period.

Among the works included in the sale are pristine 19th century works and exciting works by modern and contemporary Southeast Asian artists. Works by famous figures like Walter Spies, Romualdo Locatelli, Adrien Le Mayeur de Merpres, Indonesian artists like Affandi, S. Sudjojono and Hendra Gunawan will be included in the auction.

For the very first time, Christie's Singapore will also offer a fine selection of 20th century Indian paintings featuring works by Ram Kumar, Sakti Burman, Anjolie Ela Menon, Hemendranath Mazumar, Abdur Rahman Chugtai and several others.

Indonesia (then The Dutch East Indies) with its exotic, myriad cultures and beautiful landscapes had always been a constant source of inspiration for European artists. The turn of the 19th century witnessed the emergence of a group of European artists whose unique visions of Indonesia, especially Bali, inspired a generation of indigenous artists. Bali's luxuriant flora and beautiful dancers were depicted by Le Mayeur in Balinese Girls in The Garden (estimated at:S$380,000-S$450,000). The dark palette of Locatelli is portrayed in his Portrait of a Young Girl (estimated at: S$45,000-S$65,000). A piece by Miquel Covarrubias Every Night is a Festival Night in Bali, a watercolor and body color on paper (estimated: S$80,000-S$100,000) and a refined drawing of Walter Spies, Four Young Balinese with Fighting Cocks, pencil on gray paper (estimated at: S$50,000-S$70,000) are further highlights.

Here is some useful background information about the artists.

Jose Miguel Covarrubias (Mexico, 1904-1957)'s Balinese Beauties Bathing, Covarrubias made a sketch of this work on the reverse side of the drawings he did in Bali while doing research for his book Island of Bali; these were also studies of works which the artist eventually executed in oil.

The work will be sold with a letter of authentication by Mrs. Adriana Williams, author of the book Covarrubias, University of Texas Press, 1994.

As the author of the well-regarded Island of Bali, published in l937, Jose Miguel Covarrubias was deeply interested in the anthropological and archaeological aspects of Bali.

The work is estimated to fetch between S$4,000-$6,000 (US$2,400-$3,500).

Hendra Gunawan is no doubt one of Indonesia's greatest pioneers of modern art. Using non-traditional, European visual elements, he nevertheless created works which were Indonesian in feeling and in experience.

After his death in l983, Hendra was described as an artist whose "Indonesian-ness" was undisputable, and a man whose infatuation with the people as well as with the republic was lifelong wrote art historian Astri Wright.

From the very beginning it seems, Hendra was already painting scenes of everyday activities of the common Indonesian people.

He joined Lekra (The Institute of People's Culture, a cultural organization affiliated to the Indonesian Communist party. His paintings throughout his life very rarely veered away from the sensibilities of working class Indonesia.

In the aftermath of the l965 anti-communist purge, Hendra was imprisoned for 13 years for his involvement in Lekra. This long imprisonment left him with an intense longing for his family and the outside world and the paintings from this period are charged with an emotional and profound sensitivity rarely seen in earlier works.

A number of the paintings from this collection come from this period of imprisonment including Ibu dan Dua Anak, The Mother and Two Children, and Pedagang Kambing and Nangka, Goat and Jackfruit Sellers (estimated at $40,000-$60,000/US$24,000-$35,000). (raw/Christie's)