{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":288,"auction_id":2,"set_id":2,"lot_number":"240","artist":"Arie Smit (1916 - 2016)","title":"Kebun Kori, Bali","starting_price":50000,"signed_dated":"signed (lower right)","medium":"tempera on paper","size":"12 1/2” x 17” (32 cm x 43 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":null,"exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"Adrianus Wilhelmus “Arie” Smit was a Dutch-born Indonesian painter. A leading figure in Southeast Asian art, Smit is celebrated for his exuberant paintings of Balinese village life.<br /><br />Born in 1916 in Zaandam, Netherlands, Smit and his family moved to Rotterdam in 1924, where he would study graphic design at the Academy of Arts. During this time, Smit was influenced by the Post-Impressionists Paul Signac, Paul Gauguin, and Paul Cezanne.<br /><br />His penchant for Bali started in 1938 when he joined the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army and was sent to the Dutch East Indies as a lithographer for the Dutch Army’s Topographical Service in Batavia (present-day Jakarta), engraving relief maps of the archipelago. Smit became intrigued with the mystery encapsulating Bali, the Island of the Gods, with his etchings of Balinese mountains into maps further fueling his curiosity.<br /><br />Smit served in the Dutch Army against the Japanese in early 1942 but was captured by the enemy and spent three and a half years in forced labor camps in Burma, Thailand, and Singapore. After the war, he returned to Batavia’s Topographical Service as a lithographer and jump started his professional painting career in 1948 in Java; Smit would mount his first exhibition in Batavia in October 1948.<br /><br /> Smit’s dream to visit Bali transpired in 1956 upon the invitation of the Dutch artist Rudolf Bonnet, who had settled in Ubud, Bali, in the late 1920s. Smit met art dealer James Clarence Pandy, who let him stay in a house on stilts in the breezy Sanur Beach in southeastern Bali. Smit and Pandy would then forge a life-long friendship.<br /><br />This piece titled Kebun Kori (lit. “Kori Garden”) depicts a paduraksa (kori), a gateway possessing a towering roof. It is a quintessential architectural feature in Bali and Java. The paduraksa serves as the entrance into the holiest space within a temple or other religious complex. The work at hand encapsulates Smit’s trademark of gestural brushwork and intuitive application of color, similar to Post-Impressionism.<br /><br />As an artist, Smit was first and foremost a master colorist, focusing on a vibrant palette that matched the intensity of the tropical colors of the Balinese landscape. Similar to the Balinese culture and tradition of emphasizing feeling and intuition rather than the rigidity of objectivity, Smit embraced his individuality, painting vivid Balinese scenes that pay homage to the human spirit’s resilience and unwavering tenacity in achieving existential fulfillment, much like Smit’s relentless quest (even amid a war interlude) to find Bali’s essence in more ways than meets one’s eyes.<br /><br />In 1960, Smit toured the village of Penestanan in Ubud, where he would also live. He taught young boys the rudiments of art. Smit helped form a style of genre painting called “Young Artists Style,” which had more than 300 to 400 practitioners at its peak and became popular during the Balinese tourism boom of the late 1960s to 1970s. Smit contributed to the village’s thriving, teaching farmers to become painters who eventually sold their works well. For his contributions to the flourishing of painting in Bali, Smit received the Dharma Kusuma (Flower of Devotion) cultural award in 1992 from the Balinese government. Throughout his lifetime, Smit held shows in Indonesia, Singapore, Hawai’i, and Japan. (Adrian Maranan)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":220000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":220000,"userBid":8023,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":264352,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":317,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/2/2/lot/240.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"increment":[220000,240000,260000,280000,300000,320000,340000,360000,380000,400000,450000,500000,550000,600000,650000,700000,750000,800000,900000,1000000,1100000,1200000,1300000,1400000,1500000,1600000,1700000,1800000,1900000,2000000,2200000,2400000,2600000,2800000,3000000,3200000,3400000,3600000,3800000,4000000,4200000,4400000,4600000,4800000,5000000,5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":239,"next":241,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}