Pengantin Dayak (Dayak BrideGROOM), c. 1941-1946 (reproduced in 1971-1972)

Oil on canvas
68 x 54 cm
Collection of the Fine Arts and Ceramics Museum


Emiria's support for minority ethnic groups often appears in her works. Pengantin Dayak (Dayak Bridegroom), shows five female figures lined up behind a long table with a jug on it. The dark colours of the painting contrast with the green of one of the women’s headdress and the red background.

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According to Sudarmadji, in the book, Painting in Jakarta (1974), this mixture of colours is the result of reproduction, remembering that the original image was only recorded in a black and white photograph. The quality of the lines that was prouced by this reproduction are different, even though the subject and the composition remains the same. In her thesis, Heidi Arbuckle, writes that it was possible that there are two version of this painting and the reproduction was made by Emiria herself. But, as there is no concrete evidence, there is a possibility that the original painting disappeared or was damaged and then it was reproduced by the Fine Arts and Ceramics Museum which had it in its collection.

 

About the Artist

After undertaking a training to be a nurse at the Cikini School, during the First World War Emiria travelled throughout Belgium and Austria to study painting under the guidance of Guillaume Frédéric Pijper. Upon her return to Indonesia, she founded PERSAGI (Association of Indonesian Painters) with Agus Djaya and Sudjojono, as a response to the hegemony of Dutch and European painting in Indonesia. Through her works, Emiria represented the people who had been marginalised and who were not represented in the romantic aesthetics of colonial painters.


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