Umi Dachlan

Umi Dachlan, born Umajah Dachlan, (13 August 1942 - 1 January 2009), was a pioneering Indonesian painter and an art lecturer.

Umi Dachlan was born on 13 August 1942 in Cirebon as the ninth of ten children.

Her father, Muchamad Dachlan, was a devout Muslim and businessman, who died when Umi was only seven years old.

Her mother, Rogayah struggled to raise and educate her children in the difficult time during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies.

Cirebon was the base for the Japanese power in West Jawa, and also a center of resistance.

This made life especially hard during the end of the World War II with the Japanese occupation and the Proclamation of Indonesian Independence in 1945, and the end of the Dutch occupation of the Dutch East Indies in 1949.

The family home had a large courtyard, which was often used for traditional Cirebonese performances, such as traditional Topeng mask dances, Barong Kepet magic shows, and Martial Arts practices, which fascinated Umi in particular.

These performances exposed her to various arts right from her childhood, where she showed her talent for painting, especially her love of drawing.

While her mother wanted her to pursue a legal career, Umi Dachlan followed her love of the arts.

Wendy Sorensen was the wife of an important architect in Indonesian history, Abel Sorensen, who was appointed by President Sukarno to design the Hotel Indonesia for the 4th Asian Games in 1960.

Umi Dachlan was among the 2nd generation Indonesian women artists, which sprung up during the 1960s.

Together with Erna Pirous, the wife of A.D. Pirous, Kartika Affandi, the daughter of Indonesia's premier Artist Affandi, Rita Widagdo and Nunung WS, the group influenced modern Indonesian art.

The two major Indonesian art schools were the Indonesian Institute of the Arts, Yogyakarta (formerly named ASRI) and the Design Faculty of the ITB in Bandung (FSRD), where she enrolled in 1962.

The personality of Umi Dachlan is described as nurturing, firm and genuine by her friends and colleagues.

She graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts and Design at the Bandung Institute of Technology ITB in 1968 as the third female graduate, where she also become the first female lecturer.

Her work has been described as Abstract expressionism with a figurative Lyricism.

Umi Dachlan completed her studies at the Bandung Institute of Technology ITB in 1968.

During college, she often worked as a co-designer/designer in a group in the field of fine arts.

After graduating, she painted several mural-drawing commissions for various institutions, such as the Pertamina Dumai Office, the Archive of the Indonesian Armed Forces in Bandung, and at the Indonesian Parliament building MPR/DPR in Jakarta, where she supported the installation of her teacher Ahmad Sadali together with several other students.

Within one year after graduating from college, she was appointed a lecturer at the Faculty of Fine Arts, ITB.

In the same year, she also received the Hadiah Memorial Wendy Sorensen award for Best Painting.

In 1969 one of her first exhibitions abroad brought her, and several fellow painters, to New York as part of the delegation of the First Lady Siti Hartinah, the wife of President Suharto, for the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the United Nations.

During this trip, she was exposed to American art forms, including the Abstract expressionism, a post-World-War II art form that was well established by then.

Major artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Frank Stella or Robert Motherwell were at their prime, well known internationally.

Since 1997, she lived in her dream home at the Tamansari Road just in front of the Design Institute in Bandung, where she received her close friends and family.

The fellow artist and interior designer Professor Imam Buchori Zainuddin, who also worked at the ITB, designed her house environmentally friendly, creating light and open spaces while using natural materials.

The house was finished in 1997 with furnitures designed by Farouk Kamal, a post-modern Indonesian furniture designer and a classmate of Buchori at the ITB.

Her house symbolized her two greatest pleasures, nature and music, especially Jazz, which were crucial to her artistic work.

The book Image and Abstraction that accompanied the first mayor exhibition of Umi Dachlan in 2000, showed a photo about the group of all 5 women painter during their trip to the Mills College Museum in Auckland, California in the 1990s.

(Mamannoor, p. 32)

Umi Dachlan's early work was influenced by traditional Batik paintings and tapestry works and landscape paintings.

Helena Spanjaard describes her early work as abstract, lyrical compositions that are inspired by landscapes and a strong relation to her activities in textile design and collages.

While Umi Dachlan was strongly influenced by her faculty at ITB, Bandung, she also had many artistic contacts with the second major arts center in Indonesia, the Akademi Seni Rupa Indonesia (ASRI) at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts, Yogyakarta.

Since establishment of the Republic of Indonesia after World War II, these two institutions reflected two poles of a discussions called "East versus West".

She studied and traveled frequently abroad to advance her skills and experiences.

Umi Dachlan was not married, and she died at the age of 66 on 1 January 2009 in her house in Bandung.

Her body was buried in the Jabangbayi Public Cemetery in Kesambi, Cirebon.

Umi's artistic career began with a study of the principles and techniques of artists and art lecturers at ITB, Ahmad Sadali.

She was also mentored by A.D. Pirous, Mochtar Apin, Popo Iskandar, Srihadi and Yusuf Affendi.

She was respected and well-liked by many colleagues such as Heyi Ma'mun, Sam Bimbo, Seriawan Sabana and Sunaryo.