S. Sudjojono

Acquired directly from the artist 
Private Asian Collection 

This work is in good overall condition as viewed. This work could benefit from a light, professional cleaning. Examination under ultraviolet light reveals no sign of restoration as viewed. Framed.
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Every year on their wedding anniversary, S. Sudjojono would paint a vase of flowers for his wife, Rose Pandanwangi Sudjojono, as a testament of his love and devotion. Rose and Sudjojono first met in Amsterdam while Sudjojono was on the way to Berlin, while they were both respectively married to other people. Their fates would collide again and again in Indonesia: in 1959, after a period of intense personal crisis, they divorced their respective spouses and married.

Remembered as a fiery seriosa singer, Sudjojono would also often paint the flowers she would bring back from her singing performances. Rose was not only the mother of their three daughters, but was his model and muse. Though we often hear of Sudjojono the nationalist, this painting is a penetrative lens into the soul of a man often seen as consumed by sociopolitics. When Rose first met Sudjojono, she recognized his talent, telling him: “You are history!"¹ But she also noted his lack of inspiration, and would come to help inform his work. In the words of the female Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad, it was as if Rose had awoken a depth in Sudjojono’s work.

“You have touched me with the frenzy of poetry; 
pouring fire into my songs, 
kindling my heart with the fever of love, 
thus setting all my poems ablaze, sweet love.”
- “On Loving,” Forough Farrokhzad

This work is itself shared creation of the couple: Rose did not like the vase he was using as a model, and wrapped her tulle around it, creating the translucent and wispy quality we see on the vase while it still maintains its form. The flowers are a bouquet of red lilies, blushing pink carnations, fiery red flamingo lilies and white peonies, the field of red and white a visual manifestation of the colours of his affection.

¹ Amir Sidharta , S. Sudjojono: Visible Soul, Museum S. Sudjojono, Jakarta: Indonesia, p. 81