'Balinese Boy' by Arie Smit - Original Signed Lithograph (circa 1980s) 75/99

'Balinese Boy', original signed lithograph, by Arie Smit (circa 1980s). Young Balinese men feature heavily in the oeuvre of the artist. In this case, it appears the artist sketched the young man simply, then chose to add colour only to the background which consisted of flowers and foliage. It has the effect of projecting the subject forward in the work while the green and pink colours meld, creating a visual halo, as it were. This graceful lithograph is signed in pencil by the artist in the lower right and numbered (75/99) in the lower left hand. It was recently beautifully framed with anti-reflective glass after having been cleaned and reconditioned by an art-restoration professional. Please enjoy the many photos accompanying this listing. Upon request a video will be provided.

About the Artist: ADRIANUS WILHELMUS SMIT, better known as Arie Smith, (1916-2016) studied graphic design at the Academy of Arts in Rotterdam. He was sent to the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) for military service in 1938. He worked as a lithographer for the Dutch army's Topographical Service in Batavia (Jakarta) and made maps of the archipelago. In early 1942, Smit was captured by Japanese forces at the start of WW II. He spent over three years in forced labor camps as a prisoner of war and built roads, bridges, and railways in Singapore, Thailand, and Burma. After the war ended, Smit was released and returned to the new Republic of Indonesia. He became an Indonesian citizen in 1951. He taught graphics and lithography at the Institute Teknology Bandung (Bandung Institute of Technology) in West Java, and pursued his own artistic interests during this time.

Smit first visited Bali in 1956, and after two months he decided to make the island his permanent home. In the early 1960s Smit gave art supplies to teenage youths in a village near Ubud. With minimal instruction but lots of encouragement, they created a naive style of genre painting that became known as the Young Artists Style. In recognition for his role in the development of painting on the island, Smit received the Dharma Kusuma award in 1992 from the government of Bali. The Arie Smit Pavilion was opened at the Neka Art Museum in Ubud in 1994 to display his works and those of contemporary Balinese artists.

A very creative and productive artist, Smit often experiments with his style to show refreshing new views of familiar scenes. His works evoke the light and colours of late 19th century Impressionism, but he never painted on location. He sketched outdoors and then created works in his studio. Elements of early 20th century Fauvism also appear in his works, but his style incorporates features which he developed while living and working in Bali. Smit is a master of colour and composition. Repeated elements, often simplified to their very essence but still recognisable, create visual rhythms. His vibrant paintings focus on the people and places of Bali with his own special "broken colours" technique (when an artist applies colours to a painting in small strokes but does not blend them). Instead, the colours blend optically rather than literally to show the beauty and deeper rhythms of life.

In 2011 the market realised a record price for the most expensive work sold at auction by Smit at the March Larasati Singapore sale. “Balinese Village and Farmlands” sold for close to 5 times its estimated price at a high of US $124,000. At Christie’s Hong Kong Asian 20^th Century Art Sale May 2015 Smit’s “Pura” sold for just over US $207,000.

Dimensions with frame:

H 71 cm / 28"

W 58 cm / 22.8"

Dimensions without frame:

H 52 cm / 20.5"

W 39 cm / 15.4"