Lot 31

PRISTINE COLLECTION OF A GENTLEMAN, INDONESIA Over the course of nearly fifty years, this Indonesian gentleman maintained a passionate devotion to both the master works as well as to the contemporary art of his time, ultimately creating one of the most impressive collections of 19th and 20th century Indonesian art ever assembled. What defined the collection was its intensely personal nature - the collector consistently made courageous choices, buying deeply challenging works which required not only conviction but knowledge and intuition. The criteria for the selection are obvious. The collector will only select the best available pieces from the artists he collected. An effort was also made to encapsulate a comprehensive development of Indonesian art and to that effect, what is more befitting than to include the impressive oeuvre of the esteemed Raden Saleh, an artist considered as the first indigenous artist from the 19th century Dutch East Indies and one who celebrated the grandiose of his beloved Indonesian landscape in a romantic manner. Like the art historians who observed that the development of Indonesian art had come to an abrupt halt after the passing of Raden Saleh in 1880, only to enter into a period of unprecedented flowering of artistic creativity at the turn of the century, the collector too duly paid his homage with his ingenious selection of Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur's Two beauties on Tahitian beach and Walter Spies' The night festival in Djogja, both of which are highly representational of the flourishing creative community that congregated in Bali in the first quarter of the 20th century. The choice of the works revealed a profound appreciation of the artists' career not to mention a remarkable confidence of the collector. Le Mayeur, a Belgian artist who made Bali his adopted home in the last stage of his life and career, is renowned for his glorious rendition of the tropical island. However, the collector included a non-Balinese work of the artist in his collection. This work from the Tahitian period revealed an unmistakable influence from Gauguin and more significantly, it traced the travels of Le Mayeur, testifying to a true spirit of a painter-traveller. Walter Spies' The night festival in Djogja is another jewel in the crown, dated in 1926, this work is considered the missing jigsaw that linked the first artistic period of the artist in the Dutch East Indies to his later, better known works of Bali. Spies first arrived in Bandung, Java, in 1923 and he moved very shortly after to Yogyakarta where he took a job at the Sultan's Kraton as a director of music. In 1927, Spies asked the Sultan to relieve him of his duties and he moved to Bali where he settled until his abrupt death in 1942. It is therefore very likely that the present work is a last work of his Yogyakarta period. If the works of Masters are the obvious choices for the collector due to its apparent artistic and historical importance, the gentleman also developed a taste for the most powerful and rewarding art of the 20th century Indonesia. As he began to turn his attention to a group of indigenous artists in the early 1950s, he made deep commitments to the artists who were believed to have made significant impact on Indonesian Modern Art. Amongst them, 4 artists stand out prominently in this collection, namely S. Sudjojono, Hendra Gunawan, Affandi and Lee Man Fong. These aesthetic choices also led to close personal friendships with the artists. "Sudjojono proudly brought me the painting and told me that the title of the work is The indestructible desert. He then went into an eloquent explanation of the title, in the most typical Sudjojono way, all the time showing an overwhelming satisfaction with the finished work." (Interview with the collector, 21 March 2006.) The collector recalled the day when the work was shown to him by the artist and the work had consequently remained proudly in the same spot of his house for the next 2 decades. Anecdotes as such are many with this collection as the collector was deeply involved. If one is impressed with a whole wall of the collector's living room, adorned exclusively with the works of Lee Man Fong, one would also appreciate that the collector is always given the first choice with the artist's works. "Man Fong showed me 2 works, both of them were beautiful and fragile flowers, one is in red and the other in yellow, I picked The yellow allamanda which appealed to me more." (Interview with the collector, 21 March 2006.) Hendra's languorous Reclining nude is another rare visual treat as the portrayal of an overtly sensuous sitter is arguably uncommon amongst the artist's extensive repertoire of Indonesian women. It is a selection as such that demonstrated the highly subjective judgment of the collector whose sole prerequisite for his collection was for the work to engage him intently. It is with such passion and dedication that the collector built a house that was a sanctuary of art, a private, intimate setting that inspired everyone to contemplate the remarkable collection that filled the home to its seams. It is an honour for Christie's to work with these 9 best works from a collection that was built over the last 5 decades and a privilege, we have come to realize after working with the collection closely for the catalogue, to be given an opportunity to trace and record a process of discerning choices that has lasted half a century.

ADRIEN-JEAN LE MAYEUR DE MERPRÈS (Belgium 1880-1958)

Two beauties on Tahitian beach

Details

ADRIEN-JEAN LE MAYEUR DE MERPRÈS (Belgium 1880-1958)
Two beauties on Tahitian beach
signed 'J Le Mayeur' (lower right)
oil on canvas
35 3/8 x 43 1/4 in. (90 x 110 cm.)

Provenance

Yu Chee Chong Fine Art, London.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Literature

Jop Ubbens and Cathinka Huizing, Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès: Painter-Traveller, Wijk en Aalburg, 1995, no. 124 (illustrated, p. 80).

Lot Essay

As an impressionist, Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merpr ès was always in pursuit of the sunlight. As a painter-traveller, the artist was fascinated with the exotic land and foreign people. These yearnings led to the constant travels of the artist and his numerous works, both in drawings and in oils, served as the best mementos of his search of the exotic and light.

"All the documented journeys described here were undertaken by Le Mayeur after World War I. Thanks to the letters which covered the period 1927-1947 it has been possible to reconstruct several of these journeys. Information about those made between 1919 and 1927 has been taken mainly from his paintings and gouaches dated from that time. Le Mayeur was wealthy enough not to have to paint for money. He was free to choose and develop his themes as he liked, and nothing prevented him from settling in cities like Marseilles, St. Tropez, or Venice, for as long as he liked. He would choose a location at leisure, then mentally absorb the particular atmosphere at different times of the day. Then he would make numerous sketches, or even gouaches before finally turning to oil. Some studies are inscribed 'matin' (morning) or 'soir' (evening) at the bottom which refers to the quality of light at a particular time of the day.

The family says that Le Mayeur lived according to a certain rhythm: he would be gone for a few years (usually three), then he might live in his Brussels studio at 28 Avenue van Becelaere for six to twelve months, before setting out again to look for sunlight and colour." (Jop Ubbens and Cathinka Huizing, Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès: Painter -Traveller 1880-1958, Wijk en Aalburg, The Netherlands, 1995, p. 11).

However, one did not discover any letter by the artist documenting his travel to Tahiti, but a series of oils and drawings depicting, most notably the voluptuous women of the Pacific island hinted at the indelible impression left by the island on the artist.

The quality of the light varies on the canvas as the artist travelled from places to places. Unlike the warm, glorious light of the tropics in Bali, the works from Tahiti revealed a glistening effect of the sunlight, that bounced off the shimmering, smooth skin of the usually voluptuous and sensuous female bodies, that was not disrupted by the shadow cast over by the rich foliage of the tropics. As observed by Jop Ubbens and Cathinka Huizing "Almost all Le Mayeur's Tahitian paintings depict women, who take up almost all of the foreground. These are forceful works, leaving a somewhat inelegant impression because of the large, thick-set figures. The composition is unmistakably inspired by Gauguin." (Ibid, p. 74)

The composition actually did not differ much from his works from his travel to Madagascar where he had also let his sitters occupy the foreground, leaving little room for other details, thus rendering a domineering impact of the strong, almost crude female bodies onto their onlookers. The effect is immediate as it is dramatic and the affinity with Gauguin, particularly with the master's Tahitian work is unmistakable, and it is almost like the artist had taken his first concrete step toward the exoticism and primitivism which would flourish in his eventual Balinese oeuvres.

The robust bodies of the 2 Tahitian women were painted with a crude honesty that did not idealise nor sentimentalise the sitters. With one reclining languorously on the ground and the other tilting her head in such a way that emphasized her round and full shoulder, which hinted at a sensuous undertone of the composition, the allure of the sitters are of their self-assured attitude and their athletic physique that gives them a bizarre state of nobility. The placement of a flower in between the two sitters as well as a few more scattered in the background adds but a faint colour to the composition that counterbalances the striking fabrics worn on the sitters, which allegorically pointed to the two beauties who are in full bloom of their beauty and youth.

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