Senior cartoonist and Indonesian prodigy Augustin Sibarani was declared the country's cartoon maestro at a modest ceremony by the Indonesia Cartoon Museum.

Sibarani, now 83, is known for his sharp criticism of the Indonesian government under both Sukarno and Soeharto.

"If he saw that government policies only caused people more suffering, he thought that the policies jeopardized the lives of many people. So there was a period when Sibarani's drawings showed nothing but his anger toward the government," Pramono R Pramoedjo, a noted cartoonist who attended the ceremony, told The Jakarta Post Saturday.

"He was a rare type of cartoonist at the time. That was why he became a role model for many junior cartoonists in the years afterward,"he added.

Pramoedjo said he admired Sibarani's courage and style of painting, which according to him was controversial and frank.

"Sibarani often abandons the proportional principle in his cartoons, but in return he has a strong message. Many of his drawings may look modest in style, but they have strong characters and messages," said Pramoedjo, who publishes his cartoons in Sinar Harapan and Suara Pembaruan evening dailies.

Sibarani arrived at the ceremony in a wheelchair and shared his biggest smile and tears of joy at receiving the award. Accompanied by his two sons, Gorga Sibarani and Gorkhy Sibarani, Sibarani was then given the chance to sketch a cartoon on a canvas provided by the museum.

The Indonesia Cartoon Museum on Jl. Kuta was opened to the public this year. The museum is the fruit of many years of labor by around 600 cartoonists from the Indonesian Cartoonist Association (Pakarti). The aim of the museum is to provide the last sanctuary for thousands of Indonesian cartoonists' drawings.

"We will exhibit the drawing along with other collections in the museum," Istio Hadi, cartoonist-turned-businessman in charge of the museum's daily operations, said.

The exhibition of Sibarani's paintings, which kicked of last Saturday, will last until Oct. 31.

Sibarani was born in North Sumatra on Aug. 25, 1925, and graduated from a farming school in Bogor in West Java.

Sibarani started his career as a plantation supervisor in Merbuh, Central Java, working on the farm during the Japanese regime from 1942 to 1945. A decade later he decided to quit his farming job to become a cartoonist.

His cartoons were regularly published in several newspapers, including Bintang Timur and Merdeka.

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