Glerum popularized Indonesia paintings

Glerum popularized Indonesia paintings

By Amir Sidharta

JAKARTA (JP): Since 1994, Southeast Asian art was primarily
auctioned by Christie's in Singapore. Last year, Sotheby's
followed suit and held their first auction of Southeast Asian
paintings in Singapore. Since then, the two largest auction
houses in the world have been actively dealing in Southeast Asian
art.

But the true pioneer of auctions of Indonesian art is neither
Christie's nor Sotheby's. The person who first saw the potential
for marketing Indonesian art was the Dutch auctioneer Jan Pieter
Glerum.

Glerum entered the auction business in 1964, following his
father's footsteps. In 1989, after having worked for Sotheby's
for fifteen years, Glerum decided to establish his own auction
house.

After five sales in 1990, Glerum decided to hold a separate
auction of Indonesian paintings. In the following year, they held
their first successful sale of Indonesian art. Glerum Auctioneers
has held annual auctions of Indonesian paintings since then, and
last year held two auctions in Singapore.

Jan Pieter Glerum, who was in Jakarta recently with R.O.B.
Mulder, Glerum's Specialist, spoke about the history of his
enterprising auction house and where it was headed.

Question: When did you start dealing in Indonesian paintings?

Answer: The decision to start with Indonesian paintings was
made in 1990. I started in the auction business in 1964 with what
was then the largest auction house in the Netherlands. At the
time, any Indonesian (Dutch Colonial) painting was difficult to
sell. All Dezentjes, Dakes, and Elands could not be sold by the
auction house where I worked, and were sent to a "rubbish"
auction house. We would sell a Hofker, because he was a nice man
and still alive, for NG200, but that was the maximum.

I never understood that until later. Just as there was a lot
of frustration in Indonesia about its colonial past, there was
also a lot frustration in Holland about being "kicked out" of
here in 1958. This means many people returned here under sad
circumstances. The children of that generation wanted to be as
Dutch as they could be. For a long time the Indonesian experience
we had was completely neglected, as our Indonesian past of 350
years was completely forgotten after 1958.

When I was young, I learnt everything about the Netherlands-
Indi. But my children hardly knew that a large part of the Dutch
riches came from here. There was a large gap in the knowledge.
That was very clear in the art market.

I was the director of Sotheby's in Amsterdam for 15 years, and
I started my own auction house in September 1989. We were in The
Hague, the center where Dutch people from the East came to live.
In the first five auctions, we obtained a relatively high number
of Dutch colonial paintings. That year we had a short season, and
we had six auctions.

In 1990 I noticed there was interest in those paintings. There
was an interest from people in the Indonesian Embassy in The
Hague. We even sold a beautiful picture of a volcano erupting by
Raden Saleh, for the unbelievable amount of NG25,000. We had 20
auctions that year, and since then we have had 20 auctions a year
in Holland, in different fields.

Q: That is unbelievably high. Was it a record?

A: Yes, it was completely unbelievable. It was the record price.
We had all the record prices until 1994: the Hofkers, the Le
Mayeurs, Bonnets, and even the Spies.

In 1987, we didn't even know who Walter Spies was. We knew
about Hofker, Bonnet and Dake. We knew Raden Saleh because he was
in the Rijksmuseum, but we didn't know about Spies, Abdullah, or
any of the modern painters.

In 1990 I said to Jeannette ten Kate, who later became my
wife, "we are going to have a separate sale of Indonesian art
beginning in 1991, and you will be the expert". The only reason
she was the expert was because she had visited Jakarta, Surabaya
and Bali. Those were her credentials.

At the time, the only book on Indonesian art available in
Holland was Verlaat Rapport Indi by Loos-Haxman.

We immediately received two fake Bonnets, which were made
after the ones in the catalog of the Soekarno Collection, which
we owned. They were made with an epidiascope. When we found that
out, we thought we were extremely clever.

But on the cover of the first sale was Le Mayeur, which we
later learned was a fake, and I took that back last year.

Q: What do you mean you 'took it back'?

A: I got it back from the buyer, six years after it was sold.

We learned there were three Abdullahs. We had never heard
about Abdullah, and so we learned about Basuki Abdullah, his
father and his brother. We knew nothing about modern Indonesian
art. Affandi was another name we had never heard of. Between 1990
and 1993 we learned a lot from people in Holland and from the few
Indonesian people that came to The Hague as buyers. We were very
surprised that in the first sale, we had five Indonesian buyers.

Q: When was the first separate sale of Indonesian art?

A: It was in May 1991. We started collecting in October, 1990.
The first painting fetched NG400,000. We were extremely proud and
said we had discovered a new market. By the end of 1992,
Christie's started having separate sales of Indonesian art.
Sotheby's started very late. They included Indonesian paintings
in their sale of 19th century paintings.

Q: How would you describe the second Glerum sale?

A: The second sale was a lot better. We doubled the sale and
gained NG800,000. In 1995 we gained NG5 million in Holland alone,
making it our best year. We then decided to go to Singapore where
Christie's had been established since 1994.

Glerum is a rather small auction house. We are the third
auction house in Holland, but we are only half as big as
Sotheby's. An auction in Singapore costs a lot of money, so it
wasn't until 1996 that we could afford to hold one.

Problem

The problem with the Dutch and English auction houses was,
apart from the Dutch Colonial paintings, that everything before
1945 we knew quite well, but everything after 1945 was extremely
difficult to gain knowledge about. The majority of us have
visited museums in Jakarta, visited Oei Hong Djien's art
collection in Magelang and seen one or two collections. But for
most experts, it is extremely difficult whether they be Jop
Ubbens, Meity Heiden or anyone else.

Q: There were many fakes in your auction in December last year.
What do you say about this?

A: Fakes are unavoidable in a market that is as expensive as this
one. I wish there was a group of Indonesian experts who were able,
in an objective way, to detect the fakes. That is the only way
one could learn about them. No major auction house wants to sell
fakes, because sooner or later they will them back. So it is a
matter of having the right experts.

And there are far too many uncertainties. The Raden Saleh
painting in Sotheby's last sale, didn't look much like a typical
Raden Saleh painting. But then another one was considered a good
Raden Saleh.

You have to trust your own experts and your own knowledge. You
should have objective experts. And they will come. The trouble is
there is so much money involved that people are afraid to get an
opinion.

Q: How did you find out the Le Mayeur was a fake?

A: It was on the cover of the 1991 catalog. When you've seen 20
Le Mayeurs you know a little bit better, but after you've seen
200 Le Mayeurs, you can spot the fake.

But of course that is the trouble. You may have seen 12 Trubus
paintings, but maybe that is not enough.

Q: Are the fakes from Indonesia or also from the Netherlands?

A: Both. Mostly everything after World War II was Indonesian
fakes, but before the War they were European fakes. But it is
very difficult because there ways to create a fake. You can have
an original painting with a fake signature. Or you can have an
original painting that is 50 percent painted over by somebody
else. The easiest fake to detect is the deliberate stupid copy.

Q: What is the future of Indonesian art?

A: What I would like to do is a sale of contemporary Indonesian
art. There are enough good artists and good art around.

But in the meantime we have to go on with our normal sales.
We'll concentrate more on Malaysian and Singaporean art. We now
have an agent in the Philippines to cover part of the region.

Q: Is the supply of Dutch Colonial pictures running short?

A: Yes. The basis of all our sales has been Dutch Colonial
paintings, and the supply is running short. In Europe, there is
very little remaining. But there is hope. A lot of Dutch, after
they were thrown out in 1958, didn't like Holland anymore and
settled in the United States, in Canada, and in South Africa.
There is still some Indonesian art in those countries.

Q: Have you learned of any other unknown Dutch Colonial painters
since Haks and Maris' Lexicon of Foreign Artists who Visualized
Indonesia was published in 1995?

A: Yes, we are finding more. We are now aware of almost double
the amount of artists in that book. Of course that was because
Haks and Maris became tired writing their book. That is not
surprising because it was such a feat. But there are not many
other artists who are considered of great importance.

Artists like Jan Frank, Sayers, the Modernists and Ouburg are
still underestimated. But that is already changing.

Q: What do you think about Balinese art?

A: I like Balinese art a lot, although commercially it is not all
that interesting. But its time will come.

Q: The circle of collectors is still relatively small and they
are becoming more selective. What do you plan to do to broaden
the market?

A: One of the things that should be created is a market for
contemporary art. In the last three days, I have seen so many
good artworks, which are not so expensive. It could be the start
of a new group of collectors here.

There will be new collectors here, although not in the same
league as the Riady or Ciputra. But you need those collectors to
sustain a balanced market. In five years, there will be a middle
class, and you need to have a healthy art market.

What is also needed is a good museum, and US$1 million to keep
the paintings in the Museum Seni Rupa Jakarta. Of course a
rapidly growing country such as this one has priorities other
than art, but this is also very important. It is a pity to see
beautiful Sudjojonos and Hendras falling apart.

Q: Indonesian auctions often have a local audience. Do you think
contemporary Indonesian art can be extended outside Indonesia?

A: It deserves to be more international. We should try to attract
a market bigger than Indonesia. Some artists, especially some of
the post-1945 artists like Hendra and Affandi, deserve to have an
international recognition. Christie's and Sotheby's also need to
go more international with their sale of Indonesian paintings.

Q: When is your next sale?

A: We will hold two sales in September. We will have one sale of
Indonesian furniture and another of Indonesian works of art
including silver, copper, bronze, Chinese porcelain, Indonesian
paintings, and a group of 25 Philipino paintings. In December, we
hope to have a sale of Western art and we aim to hold a separate
sale of Indonesian contemporary art. The next step is to include
Indonesian art in our sales in Holland.