Arie Smit
| Arie Smit | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Adrianus Wilhelmus Smit 15 April 1916 Zaandam, Netherlands |
| Died | 23 March 2016 (aged 99) Denpasar, Bali |
| Nationality | Dutch, Indonesian |
| Known for | Painting |
Adrianus Wilhelmus "Arie" Smit (15 April 1916 – 23 March 2016) was a Dutch-born Indonesian painter who lived on Bali.
Smit was the third of eight children of a trader in cheese and confectionery in Zaandam. His family moved in 1924 to Rotterdam, where Smit eventually studied graphic design at the Academy of Arts. In his youth he was most inspired by the work of three artists named Paul (Signac, Gauguin and Cézanne). In 1938 he joined the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army. After three months he was sent to the Dutch East Indies , where he worked as a lithographer for the Dutch army's Topographical Service in Batavia, engraving relief maps of the archipelago. Etching Balinese mountains onto maps ignited his desire to one day go to Bali.
In early 1942 Smit was transferred to the infantry in East Java, but was soon captured by the invading Japanese forces. He spent three and a half years in forced labor camps building roads, bridges, and railways on the Burma Railway in Thailand, and Burma. After the Japanese capitulation in August 1945, Smit convalesced in Bangkok until January 1946. After being stationed in Denpasar, Bali as a staff writer for the infantry, he returned to the Topographical Service in Batavia in September. Until its discontinuation in 1950, he remained employed at this service, eventually becoming head of the drawing department, but in his spare time he criss-crossed Java as a painter and in October 1948 had his first exhibition in Batavia/Jakarta. After Indonesian Independence on December 27, 1949, all Dutch nationals had to choose between Dutch or Indonesian citizenship within two years. Smit briefly considered emigrating to South Africa, but decided to stay; he became an Indonesian citizen late in 1951. In the following years he taught graphics and lithography at the Institut Teknologi Bandung in West Java.
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