LOT 69
HAJI WIDAYAT
B. Indonesia, 1919 – 2002
Burung Phoenix
Signed Haji Widayat on lower left and titled Burung Phoenix on lower right. Acquired from Sothebys Hong Kong’s Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art Auction on 1st April 2019 Lot 407
Oil on board
50 x 59.5 cm
Private Collection, Singapore
RM 10,000 – 18,000
Legendary Indonesian artist Haji Widayat was born in Kutoarjo, Central Java in 1919. He is regarded as one of the most influential Javanese painters of the 20th century. The individualistic master picked up painting from an amateur landscape painter in Bandung before pursuing it seriously at the age of 31 by studying at the Indonesian Academy of Fine Arts (ASRI) in Yogyakarta. In the early 1960s, he received a grant to study ceramic, printmaking and the decorative arts of landscape gardening and ikebana flower arrangement in Nagoya, Japan for two years. Widayat passed away in 2002. This figurative artwork poses the artist’s representation of the phoenix in earthy colours.