Arie Smit, an incredible talent for conveying a message…

Arie Smit is undoubtedly the European painter who was the most influential on the Balinese painting scene.

Born in 1916 in Zaandam, the Netherlands, Arie Smit pursued a military career in the Royal Netherlands East Indian Army where he worked as a lithographer for the Dutch Army Topographic Service in Batavia, engraving relief maps of the archipelago.

After Indonesia’s independence on 27 December 1949, all Dutch nationals had to choose between Dutch and Indonesian nationality, a choice he made in 1951. In the following years, he taught graphic design and lithography at the Teknologi Bandung Institute in West Java.

At the invitation of the Dutch artist Rudolf Bonnet, he went to Bali in 1956, where he was captivated by the Balinese landscapes. He quickly decided to stay and paint villages, rice terraces, palm trees and temples.

In 1960, while visiting the village of Penestananan in the Ubud district where he lived, he met young artists who were drawing in the sand. Impressed by their talent, Smit invited them to his studio where they became the first of a growing number of students.

Under his guidance, his students created a naive style of painting, which became known as the “Young Artists” style, with between 300 and 400 enthusiasts at its peak. Master Tagen, several of whose paintings are on sale on our website, is one of his most illustrious disciples.

Arie Smit would also influence many foreign painters who came to live in Bali, including the Swiss Paul Husner and the American Symon.

As a tribute to his role in the development of painting on the island, Smit was awarded the Dharma Kusama, the 1992 Balinese Cultural Prize, by the Bali Government.

An Arie Smit pavilion was inaugurated at the Neka Art Museum in Ubud in 1994 to exhibit his works and those of contemporary Balinese artists. The Bali Museum in Denpasar and the Penang Museum in Malaysia also have collections of his artwork.

Smit later exhibited in Jakarta, Singapore, Honolulu and Tokyo.

Smit died on 23 March 2016 in Bali, a few weeks before his 100th birthday.