Ibu dan Anak (Mother and Child), 1963

Oil on canvas
59 x 74 cm
Collection of Galeri Nasional Indonesia

The painting, Mother and Child (1963), by Gregorius Siharta Soegijo was made a year before he was forced to step down from his teaching position at ASRI Yogyakarta. The official reason given was that his qualification from the Netherlands hadn’t yet been certified. The actual reason was that he was a signatory of the Manifes Kebudayaan (Cultural Manifesto, Manikebu). As many of ASRI’s teachers were aligned with Lekra, Sidharta had become vulnerable. The same polemic provided the same context for the criticism of Sidharta’s paintings of that era. He was considered to be too Western and to prioritise form over content.

Sidharta himself wasn’t too intererested in form. After he had returned from the Netherlands, he had experimented a lot with the layout of lines and colours in flattened perspectives in his paintinga. Over time, objects disappeared from his paintings and were replaced with geometric forms, as is evident in this work, Mother and Child. The canvas is dominated by intersecting lines and a play of perspectives with a minimalistic range of colours.

 

About the Artist

Gregorius Sidharta Soegijo was a multi-talented artist. He studied painting at the Sanggar Pelukis Rakyat in 1947 and with a number of friends founded the Pelukis Muda Indonesia (Young Painters of Indonesia) in Yogyakarta at the start of the 1950s. Later he became known as one of the innovators of sculpture in Indonesia. Sidharta gained attention for his use of materials that were rarely used in sculpture – such as rice and money. His works became a part of popular culture. For example, his sculpture at Bung Karno’s (Sukarno) grave in Blintar, the Garuda Pancasila symbol above the podium at the MPR/DPR parliamentary building, and the Citra Awards for Indonesian Film Festival winners.


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