Artfordable Auction

The Late Artists (lot #136 – 149)

Works by Deceased Artists in our Auction

Our Artfordable Auctions have usually been associated with young or younger artists such as Erica Hestu Wahyuni, Bonnie Setiawan, Rudi Mardianto and many other names. However several artists we feature in our Artfordable Auction are artists who are deceased. Late last year, Jeihan Sukmantoro, an Indonesian Modern Art maestro who has been a star of our auctions, passed away at the age of 81 years adding to our “pantheon” of deceased artists.

It is said that the price of the works of artists increase sharply once they are deceased. Of course this just follows the basic economic principle of supply and demand. Once an artist dies, no more works are added to his or her pool of supply. Even if demand remains constant, the price of the pieces increase. So, the most important thing is to have demand in the first place. What creates demand? Demand happens way before the artists are deceased.

Demand for the works of artists is developed since the artist’s characteristic style is formed. Although they might be influenced by great artists under whom they may have studied, every artist is interested in eventually establishing their own artistic style. Once they have managed to establish their own style, they should be able to be marketed to art collectors, who will become interested in their unique artistic styles.

In our “pantheon” of deceased artists, are artists trained in Yogyakarta, such as Maria Tjui, Nyoman Gunarsa and Krijono. While they might not have received direct instruction from Affandi, their works show tremendous influence of the Indonesian modern art pioneer, especially in their expressionistic brushstrokes. More intriguing is how they have managed to each develop their own artistic approaches and style, while not having to give up traces of Affandi’s influence in their styles.

While Affandi painted by pressing paints out of their tubes to delineate his forms on to the canvas, Maria Tjui applied wet paints and also paints from tubes using a brush to create her expressionistic forms. The brushstrokes appear almost as dynamically linear as Affandi’s, but her linear use of wet paints mark her unique signature style.

Affandi’s influence on Nyoman Gunarsa’s paintings are apparent in his narrative genre painting done in the 1960s and 1970s. However, the strong lines of his more recent various singular dancers, also show Affandi’s influence. While Affandi tries to limit his work to strictly just lines of tube paints on almost bare white canvases, Nyoman Gunarsa fills his backgrounds with color and ornaments. Krijono takes Gunarsa’s aesthetic one step further towards the abstract. Using large blocks of bright unmixed primary colors and strong outlines, Krijono creates his unique strong graphic compositions. He refused to mix colors to get a new color. “I’m a painter, not paint mixer.” he is known to have said. His colors are usually primary colors.

The late Popo Iskandar and Jeihan Sukmantoro both studied at the Institute of Technology Bandung (ITB). Most early students of the Institute painted using the Analytical Cubism method popularized by Dutch painter Ries Mulder, who taught there. While there are still some slight traces of Analytical Cubism in both in Popo’s and Jeihan’s works, they also managed to develop their own characteristic style. Popo often combines large blocks of color with dynamic lines or various other methods of paint application. Not having enough money to purchase artist’s paints, he often used wall paints, which affected the way he worked as well as his characteristic style; he turned his weakness into his strength.

Jeihan also has a similar story. Best known for the black eyes of the figures in his paintings, initially they came about as a result of his failure in painting eyes realistically. Finally he decided to color the entire eye black without leaving a trace of white. Later he realized that the black eyes served as a metaphor. The black eyes are interpreted as an attitude of life to not be credulous but at the same time not to be presumptuous of the visible reality. “We, humans, live in the darkness of mystery. We never know what will happen, “explained the maestro. Through the black eyes of the figures in his paintings, Jeihan suggests his viewers to always keep an open imagination about the things that could not be reached by the physical reach of humans alone through the open eye and to always look deeper and farther, like the black hole of the universe. Jeihan too turned his weakness into his strength.

Heavily influenced by the works of his father, landscape painter Abdullah Suriosubroto, Sudjono Abdullah is also known for his landscapes. While he adopted his father’s technique of painting vegetation using diagonal slashes applied with a small paint brush or a palette knife, he combined it with broader strokes also using paint brushes or palette knives. Tremendously talented, he managed to develop not just one but two or more characteristic styles. The first type show grand views of serene landscapes, usually featuring a prominent mountain, rice fields and various vegetation, without any hint of human figures. The second type shows scenes of rice fields, usually during harvest, or dark village market scenes with impressions of human figures, painted in using swift strokes of the brush or palette knife.

Although he was known more as a journalist and art critic, Mara Karma’s involvement in the field of fine arts occupied him from 1987 until the end of his life. His name actually started to gain prominence when he moved to Jakarta in 1949. In 1950 he reviewed Basoeki Abdullah’s exhibition in Mimbar Indonesia. In the capital city, he befriended S. Sudjojono, Zaini, Nashar, and Abas Alibasjah. His works as a painter is more for his love of art. “Always create something from the heart,” he reminded his granddaughter, Sitta Karina. It is perhaps because he paints not to prove anything to anyone but just for his love of creating art. That is why he never became as famous as his “maestro” friends. Although his maestro friends established their own styles, influenced by various artistic discourses globally, Mara Karma searched for inspiration from local Indonesian landscape artists, particularly Wakidi, who is also from Bukit Tinggi. He paid increasingly greater attention to the effects of colors and light. While some of his paintings became his means of conveying social criticism of modern life, in essence his art is his form of story-telling.

The seven deceased painters we showcase here are noteworthy, not only because they are de- ceased, but because each and everyone of them have their own strong distinct styles. We remember them because of each of their signature styles, which have become part of their artistic “brand”. Vita brevis, ars longa, they say. Artists’ works of art continues their legacies.