Hendra Hadiprana (1929-2018).

In Indonesia, not many have the devotion and dedication to contribute to the arts scene like architect Hendra Hadiprana.

Born Hoo Tjoe Heng, Hadiprana received a Lifetime Achievement honor from KOHLER Bold Design Awards on March 8, the first ever granted to an Indonesian. Sadly, the award was posthumously conferred because Hadiprana died on Dec. 20, 2018, at the age of 89.

Hadiprana was a graduate of Groningen’s Academie Minerva Afdeling Architektuur in the Netherlands. He started his career in Indonesia in 1957 and his works always assimilated Western and Eastern architectural features in an intimate tropical atmosphere, combined with distinctive traditional Indonesian nuances.

He also initiated the use of ancient Greek-style pillars for building facades for two decades beginning from 1970.

“The phenomenon received an overwhelming public response. Just imagine, houses from Menteng in Jakarta to Rogojampi village [in East Java] flaunted Doric, Ionic and Corinthian pillars, making Indonesia look like Greece,” the late Hadiprana once said.

As a well-known architect, Hadiprana’s preoccupation with the world of galleries was no less legendary. A gallery he set up 57 years ago remains standing today, with a series of neatly and steadily arranged activities.

Fine collection: A painting by Mulyadi W.

Om (uncle) Henk, as the man was affectionately called, established the gallery in 1962 on Jl. Falatehan I, Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta. Named Prasta Pandawa, it was inaugurated by Minarsih, the wife of famous shipbuilding entrepreneur Soedarpo Sastrosatomo.

As the architect’s name was more familiar and identifiable than Prasta Pandawa, in 1967 the gallery’s name was changed to Hadiprana Galleries. Displays to highlight young painters and promote distinguished artists were regularly held here. Uniquely, all the events were linked with the prevailing architectural and interior atmosphere.

“Only Om Henk was capable of convincing people that Affandi’s vivid paintings could become hospitable adornments and that some purely decorative paintings were not inferior to expressive works and the like,” said Mulyadi W, a painter and founder of the Sanggarbambu 1959 studio.

Painter Nyoman Gunarsa (1944-2017) once said that Hadiprana was comparable to Leo Castelli in New York, the United States, who had brought Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper John, James Rosenquist and Mark Rothko into the limelight of painting art of the 20th century.

History has indeed recorded how Hadiprana boosted the reputation of Arief Sudarsono, Nasjah Djamin, Soeparto, Umi Dachlan, Nisan Kristiyanto, Sutopo as well as Made Hantaguna and Eko Supa of the new generation.

When space was getting limited, Hadiprana Galleries moved to Jl. Kemang Raya, South Jakarta, and was renamed Galeri Hadiprana, the Indonesian translation of its previous name. The building with attractive architecture has accommodated many exhibitions. Puri Hadiprana, his daughter, was appointed as manager and the gallery still stands today as one of the oldest active galleries in Indonesia.

Old times: Hadiprana (second left) at his gallery in 1970.

Hadiprana began collecting and selecting paintings for his gallery in the 1960s, when Indonesia’s fine art world was starting to grow and art collection was still an uncommon activity. It was even at the time when visual artists were at the crossroads of their artistic standpoints.

“At the time, even Yogyakarta and Solo painters weren’t prepared to charge for their works so I had to determine their prices,” Hadiprana once said. It happened because these artists still regarded their paintings as coming from a process of spiritual creation, meaning sacred works of art. Besides, they still retained their Javanese feeling of unwillingness or awkwardness to bargain.

Hadiprana’s collection covers different schools of art that form important links in the history of Indonesian fine art.

There are nonpolitical Sanggarbambu paintings, those of the Indonesian Fine Art Academy purported to be “nationalist”, the westernized works of the Bandung Technological Institute, those of the Young Indonesian Artists alumni active during the 1945 independence revolution period, of the Bumi Tarung studio affiliated with the People’s Cultural Institute (Lekra) and of the Indonesian Muslim Cultural Institute (Lesbumi).

Despite the diverse types and schools of art, Hadiprana was able to unify them into one corridor, placing all the works under one streamer, the banner of beauty. This banner indicates that each of the paintings has the potential function of adornment.

Hadiprana in fact believed in the words of John Keats who said that “A thing of beauty is a joy forever”. The hundreds in his collection are gathered in a nice book, TitiSani — Hendra Hadiprana dan Koleksinya (Hendra Hadiprana and his Collection), published in 2009.

Galeri Hadiprana

Photos by Agus Dermawan T.