About the artwork
Inscribed “Main Pentjak” and Bali ‘74.
Signed lower right: R. Bonnet
Black and red chalk on hand-made paper
52 cm by 42 cm
“Main Pentjak” means play fight or play dance often performed on gamelan music.
Between 1928 and 1963 Bonnet lived and worked mainly in Bali. Together with Walter Spies he had an important influence on the development of Balinese painting in the nineteen thirties. After the war Bonnet was the driving force behind the realization of the Museum Puri Lukisan of contemporary Balinese art in Ubud on Bali. In 1963 Bonnet settled in Holland but he still made several trips to his beloved Bali.
Johan Rudolf Bonnet (1895 Amsterdam - 1978 Laren) attended the Academy of fine art in Amsterdam. When he finished the art academy he left the Netherlands and travelled to Rome where he met the Dutch artist W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp. Inspired by Nieuwenkamps pen drawings of Balinese village life he went to Bali in 1929. He became a fervent admirer of the island, the local population and the traditional Balinese art, and would stay here for most of his life. In 1936 Bonnet started with the brother of the Prince of Ubud and the artist I Gusti Nyoman Lempad a foundation to support Balinese artists. During the Second World War Bonnet was interned by the Japanese in South Sulawesi and he returned to Bali after the war. In 1956 Rudolf Bonnet and the prince of Ubud started a museum for traditional Balinese art, in the centre of Ubud. In 1958 Bonnet had to leave Bali and returned to the Netherlands, where he passed away in Laren in 1978.
