Misty mysteries of a forgotten master

Yusuf Susilo Hartono, Contributor, Jakarta

When painter Zaini died on Sept. 25, 1977 after a morning jog near his home in Tomang, West Jakarta, he bequeathed some 200 paintings to his wife and four children.

About 70 percent of these works, painted between the 1940s and 1970s, are watercolor paintings made on small paper. The rest were drawn on small-and-medium-sized paper. His mediums were oil paint, china ink, pastel, pencil and marking pens.

The collection has shrunk over the years, however, as the paintings were sold to finance the schooling of Zaini's children and cover medical bills for his wife, who died last year.

One of the lucky buyers is Yogyakarta-based artist Butet Kartarajasa. He came to Zaini's house and bought up dozens of unframed Zaini paintings at "door price".

They were canny purchases, said Zaini's son Irwan Zaini, 40, also known as Buyung.

"Butet is indeed very smart," he said.

Buyung, now working at the Communication Technology Center of the National Education Ministry, said that he was a junior high school student when his father died.

In the days after Zaini's death, one of the mourners who offered condolences was Adam Malik, then vice president who promised to set up a museum to save Zaini's paintings.

No museum was ever created, and unfortunately, none of the Zaini family members followed it up before Adam Malik retired and died.

For six years the family waited, holding on to the collection in case the museum was created - but in 1983 their financial need became too great.

Zaini's artworks were exhibited for the first time in 1983 at Bentara Budaya, Jakarta, and some of them were sold.

In his life time, Zaini was noted as a painter, an executive board member of the Jakarta Art Council and a lecturer at the Jakarta Art Institute. Though many of his paintings were obscure and misty, Zaini was a humorous father, Buyung said.

To commemorate his birthday - he was born in Pariaman, West Sumatra, on March 17, 1924 - the family is to hold the first public showing of 50 of Zaini's artworks.

The exhibition, at d gallerie in Jakarta, will feature paintings worth between Rp 4 million and Rp 15 million each.

The works, which feature subjects including hamlets, valleys, ships and coconut plantations, were drawn using a blotting style of green, yellow and red colored mists amid impressive lines.

Less extraordinary is a black-and-white sketch of Tokyo City (1974).

Zaini's pastel painting of San Francisco (1973) demonstrates a very different tone to his pieces in watercolor or china ink. There are two oil paintings entitled Child I and Child II, portraying Buyung's siblings, Icang and Upi.

Drawings of a seated woman in pencil (1954 and 1957) portray Buyung's own grandma with a melancholy face. There are some sketches of models in different poses, though these are not too special.

Zaini's most impressive but mysterious painting is called Marie, which was made in 1949. This 53-year-old painting portrays the bust of a Western (probably Dutch) lady. Her hair is straight and her two eyes, which lack symmetry as his left eye is only a cornea dot without an eyelid, have a strange look.

One wonders if Zaini's model, who would now be very old, is still alive. Who is she? What relationship was there between this young woman and Zaini?

Buyung says he knew nothing about the woman, who is not mentioned in his father's diary.

Zaini, who belonged to the same genre as Rusli and Nashar, managed to keep two female nudes secret from the family. His children never knew of their existence until both parents had died. In the present exhibition, these nudes are not included.

Zaini always used models -- human and animal -- when painting. Buyung recalls how one day his father tied up a chicken and a goat in the house because he wanted to paint them.

What is the significance of the mist that is often present in his paintings? Buyung says his father never explained the unusual tone, which makes his works instantly recognizable.

One of Zaini's friends, Mustika, also a painter and a fine arts writer, once wrote: "To understand Zaini's works, we need to know the inner wealth he expresses in the idioms of his paintings."

In his time, Zaini was quite a prominent artist. But amid the hullabaloo of contemporary fine arts, Zaini is rarely mentioned.

It is to be hoped these 50 paintings are not all sold and lost to Zaini's family -- that would surely be the artist's second death.

The exhibition is running through to April 1, 2002 at d galerie at Jl. Barito I No. 3 South Jakarta. Telp. 7399378.