Sketch of Bung Karno amidst Revolutionary Fighters

Dullah studied painting with Affandi and Sudjojono and is well known as an educator and a proponent of Indonesian Revolution. During the late 1940s, he started documenting the Indonesian Revolution and depicted the struggle and the fight of the revolutionaries through his paintings and relentless propagated the cause as an artist and as a proud Indonesians. Depicting a younger Soekarno in his prime who is clearly engaging his crowd with his fiery and motivational rhetoric, Dullah managed to recreate a significant moment in history when Bung Karno (as the First President of Indonesia is fondly known by the people) unified the different groups amongst the revolutionaries to work against a single enemy - the Dutch colonial authority.

The present composition is a study of a larger oeuvre which is noted on the reverse of the painting. In the 1950s, Dullah was made the official palace painter for Soekarno and he also became the first curator of Soekarno's art collection and coordinated the publication of the first edition of the collection's catalogue in 1956. It is evident that the artist held great deal of respect for Soekarno, both for the president's charisma as a political leader and his genuine love for art which the artist expresses unabashedly with the present composition.