Maria Hofker helps bring Bali to the world

Maria Hofker helps bring Bali to the world

By Boudewijn Brands

AMSTERDAM (JP): This is a story of another of those foreign
painters who fell in love with Bali.

The works of Maria Hofker, 95, were among those which brought
Bali to the world, though she has been largely overshadowed by
her husband's art.

Her sketches and watercolors have been collected in several
books, including Indonesian Impressions, published in 1994 in the
Netherlands. It is a selection of text and illustrations of four
of her surviving booklets: Bandung and Pangandaran; Bali, Woman
at Work; Remembrances of Legong and Djanger and Ballad of the
Farmer.

Her works reflect a keen eye for nature's beauty and the life
of hard working farmers. Until now, Hofker has had 35
exhibitions, mainly held in the Netherlands.

Her work was reproduced in book form for the first time,
together with reproductions of some of her husband's work, in
1978 shortly before he died in 1981. The book was titled Bali,
published by the Omniboek in The Hague.

Born in 1902, Maria Rueter was maybe a typical child of her
time in a family of artists. As a child she always liked art and
nature but at that time art was not thought of as a career
possibility for a woman.

So Maria learned a trade: bookbinding and calligraphy. She
worked commercially from her parents' home for five years after
finishing her education.

In 1930, she met and married Willem Hofker and helped him with
his career as a painter. As was expected from a good Dutch woman
in those days, she lived for her husband.

But then came Indonesia. In 1936 Willem Hofker got an
assignment to paint a portrait of Queen Wilhelmina for offices in
Batavia, the name for Jakarta during colonial times. In January
1938 they sailed with the painting to hand deliver it.

In Indonesia, Maria found a lot of time on her hands. When in
Bandung, she made her first sketches and watercolors.

She sent watercolors of fruits in letters to her parents.
These are still well preserved today. The couple continued to
travel to Bali and stay with a painter in his simple bamboo house
in Klandis Kedaton.

The house was on the grounds of the temple well known locally
for famous legong dancers as Ni Sadri and Ni Cawan.

The Hofkers got acquainted with the few scientists and artists
staying in Bali at the time, including American anthropologist
Margaret Mead.

Artists from all nationalities seemed to be attracted to the
island, such as Walter Spies, Locatelli, Strasser, le Mayeur de
Merpres, Dooijewaard and Rudolf Bonnet.

Maria reflected on the fascination with Bali: "You felt the
wisdom of the East, a wisdom I could not grasp completely, but
for which I opened myself and from which radiated enormous power.
It was a completely new and inspiring experience; we forgot about
returning home."

The couple eventually lived in Ubud. Maria started to write
short stories on life in Bali and these "impressions", as she
called them, were published in magazines and a newspaper. She
provided calligraphies and illustrations for some of these
stories, then bound them in Balinese cloth.

On Feb. 19, 1942, Japanese forces occupied Bali and the couple
were imprisoned.

They were released six weeks later when the Japanese commander
of Bali turned up and said their policy did not include jailing
artists.

Before Christmas 1943, Willem and Maria were separated and put
in different civilian camps in Sulawesi. Here, Maria's camp was
bombed and most of her work destroyed. In February 1946, they
returned to the Netherlands, never to see Bali again.

Their life was transferred from the open, warm tropics to a
cold brick apartment. However, they felt spiritually enriched and
gradually both succeeded to get new jobs.

In 1948, Maria got a garden on the outskirts of Amsterdam.
This much coveted garden, which became the subject of a few of
her books, enabled her to combine her artistic talents developed
in Indonesia with her love for nature.

She put a rich choice of plants in her garden, leaving a lot
to nature, not making it too organized. She wrote her
observations in a diary and made beautifully calligraphed and
illustrated yearbooks which were published. She did this as much
for commercial reasons as for herself.

She did not sell many of her paintings; the couple lived off
the sales of her husband's works, which has still been a subject
of interest by the Glerum art auction house in the Netherlands.