Abdul Aziz: The Artist and his Art

By Mary Northmore Aziz, with an art appreciation by Prof. Astri Wright

Aziz left a remarkable amount of memorabilia documenting his life, along with hundreds of sketches. These together with interviews with friends and relatives who could recount episodes from their recollections, have been combined into a stunning book, the highlight of which is the second section: The art of Abdul Aziz. Here we can see a hundred paintings, sketches and sculptures, produced over a period of nearly sixty years.  And here we see what an extraordinary talent and a deep love for humanity combined to create, in full glorious, detailed and true colour.

Painter of the “Mona Lisa of Bali”, the Indonesian artist Abdul Aziz was an extraordinary Renaissance man. A revolutionary fighter, artist, sculptor, musician and violin maker, he also kept an astonishing store of original documents, sketches and photographs. His life story as told within these pages is also the history of Indonesia during the last century, seen through his own recollections and those of his friends and family. Always too busy to hold exhibitions during his life, he spurned the commercial art world. His life and work was made public for the first time by this book, revealing a world-class genius who created a stunning body of work over his lifetime.