Arie Smit (Dutch-Indonesian, 1916-2016) Children Playing

Arie Smit (Dutch-Indonesian, 1916-2016)
Children Playing
1989

signed and dated arie smit 89 (lower right); signed, titled and dated (reverse)
acrylic on canvas

72 x 71 cm (28 3/8 x 28 in)
Provenance
Neka Art Museum, Bali
Borobudur Fine Art Auction, Singapore, 19 May 2008, lot 550
Acquired from the above by the present owner
Private collection, Singapore

阿瑞·史密特
兒童嬉戲
壓克力 畫布
1989年作

簽名：arie smit 89（右下）藝術家簽名、畫題及紀年（畫背）

來源
峇里島Neka藝術館
婆羅浮屠拍賣行，新加坡，2008年5月19日，編號550
現藏家得自上述來源
新加坡私人收藏

Since the early 1900s, lush and exotic images connected to the tropical island of Bali have attracted numerous foreign artists. While many left, others chose to make the island their permanent homes. They were moved by the lifestyle and beautiful landscape of Bali, and together contributed significantly to the development of the Indonesian art scene. Among European artists who rose to prominence and gained much respect is Adrianus Wilhemus Smit, also affectionately known as Arie Smit.

Originally assigned as a soldier in the topography service of the Dutch East Indies Army in 1938, Smit never gave up his artistic dreams and decided to become an artist in Bandung, and later Bali in the mid 1950s. Having guided young artists in Bali, Smit discovered a wealth of spectacular sceneries, events, people and stories that inspired his life-long works. Unlike many Indonesian artists who paint directly from still life subjects, Smit was constantly on the move, he would sketch various objects, people, places, figures and colours. These elements were selected and arranged according to his imaginations, forming "romantic, dream-like state of mind" visual narratives. The uniqueness of Smit's oeuvre, a poetic realism, is the signature expression of the artist.

Since the 1960s, Smit's works were always in constant growth through the emerging of his personality, the development of vertical brush strokes, forms and lines that began to characterise his painting style. By the 1980s, Smit further experimented with the use of colours. Multi-coloured dots and specks appeared more frequently along with bold outlines, as well as horizontally placed dots and lines in different hues of green.1 (Suteja Neka and Sudarmaji, Arie Smit, Bali Koes Artbooks, 1995, p 19).

1. Suteja Neka and Drs. Sudarmaji, Arie Smit (Bali: Koes Artbooks, 1995), 19.