Two gypsies

As early as in the 1950s, Affandi had given up using a brush and applied paint directly onto the canvas out of the tube. With this free and spontaneous style the artist explored his own emotions and those of his subjects. Gypsies, painted in 1951, is one of Affandi's earliest works to be offered in the present catalogue. It clearly shows that his signature style has already reached maturity in the 1950s. As a well traveled artist, painting served as the best record of his foreign experience.

The strength of Affandi's fluid style lies in his ability to maintain a coherent structure of his subjects amidst the disarray of lines and colours. Details were meticulously kept, attesting much to the keen observation and to some extent the sense of humour of the artist. A very interesting detail of the present work is the shoes of the sitters. Affandi outlined the shoes and set them against the background of frantic colours and lines, while maintaining their 'personality' and highlighting them in such a way that the shoes are yet another climax in the composition apart from the faces of the sitters.