profile Affandi

Name: Affandi (1907 – May 23, 1990)
Place of birth: Cirebon, West Java.
Art Form: Expressionism

- Finished his upper secondary school in Jakarta, but he forsook his study for the desire to become an artist.
- Taught himself how to paint since 1 9 3 4.

1950s:
- Create expressionistic paintings.
- Paints directly; squeezing paint out of tube.
- Techinque by accident.
- Intended to draw a line one day.
- Lost patience when he sought for missing pencil
- Applied the paint directly from tube
- Resulting effect = painting object appeared more alive.
- More freedom to express his feelings when he used his own hands.
- Acknowledged similarities: Vincent van Gogh

1952:
- Displated works in biennale in Brazil & India

1954:
- Art works in Venice & won award therein.

1956:
- Art works in Sao Paolo

1957:
- Received scholarship from USA government, study methods of arts education.
- Appointed Honorary Professor in Painting, Ohio State University in Columbus (USA)

1974:
- Received Honorary doctorate from University of Singapore

1977:
- Peace award from Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
- Title of Grand Maestro in Florence (Italy)

Museum:
- On bank of Gajah Wong River on Solo Street in Yogyakarta
- Affandi designed and constructed a home for himself.
- Functions as museum to display his paintings.
- Uniquely constructed, roof resembles a banana leaf.
- 250 of Affandi’s paintings.
- High air humidity and temperature are causing concerns about condition of paintings.
- The Affandi Foundation, manages the museum, finds it difficult to manage museum properly, due to lack of funds and revenue.

Before passing away, Affandi spent a lot of time sitting around in his own museum, observing his paintings.
He said once:

“I want to die in simplicity without giving anyone unnecessary trouble, so I could go home to Him in peace.”

Buried in the museum complex, as he wished to always be surrounded by his family and his works.

Some of his artworks:

"Pohon Beringing"

"Self-portrait"

"Kuda Putih"

As depicted from above, most of his artworks are impressive due to his strokes that are "swirly". He tends to use warm colors like yellow, orange and also ochre colors. Quoted, he claims that most of his artworks are "lively" which explains the technique of his.