Beschreibung:

'Voor de tempel ingang' - 'Sitting at the temple entrance' , Ni Gusti Compiang Mawar annotated, signed and dated 'Bali W.G. Hofker 1945' (upper left) oil on paper, laid down on canvas, 27,5x27,5 cm Exhibited: -Makassar, Masonic Lodge, 11-16 January 1946, as no.4, during a joint exhibition of W.G. Hofker with Bonnet, Schudel-Petraschke and Los., noted as 'Voor de tempel ingang' / 'Sitting at the temple entrance', in the exhibition program of which an original document is kept in the W.G. Hofker archive of Seline Hofker. Provenance: -Collection Mr. J.L. Been, acquired in Makassar, January 1946 at the local Masonic Lodge and thence by descent in his family for the past seventy-three years. Mr. Jan L. Been knew Hofker personally from the internment camp in which they were both imprisoned during WWII. He, as chief agent of the Javaasche bank, had a leading role as manager of the financial resources within the camp and was greatly appreciated among his fellow prisoners according to the reports kept in the NIOD: 'Institute for war, holocaust and genocide studies' in Amsterdam. record no. 1643 of Indische collection: 'Ons kampleven in Makassar, Pare Pare, Bodjoh en Bolong', manuscript van Fr.M. Geroldus, 1945'. Willem Gerard Hofker and his wife Maria Hofker-Rueter lived from early 1938 to February 1946 in the former Dutch East Indies. During the Second World War they were interned by the Japanese in South Sulawesi in December 1943. Maria was detained in Kampili and Willem endured three consecutive civilian camps known as Paré-Paré, Kali Bodjo and finally Bolong until mid-September 1945. Because of his profession as an artist, which is appreciated by the Japanese as a lofty art, Willem Hofker was able to continue to draw and paint during the entire internment period. In spite of the terrible conditions of deprivation, illness and hunger, he was able to see and create beauty. Conditions in the camps were very poor, as Hofker only once mentioned this in a published interview with author Rik Valkenburg *: 'You are on a raft, as it were, and you can lose your balance if you do not adjust. ... everyone did their best to keep the raft steady. When we arrived in a very humid region in a wooded valley amidst the mountains of the Toradja-land, where there was no sunlight, in moisty huts made of fresh wood, we lay together in groups and received almost no food. We were losing weight rapidly and our strength was declining. The most beautiful lectures were given in those huts, which were conceived in the minds. In this way everyone did their best to keep themselves and others alive, with the last remaining strength'. But when Willem writes his first letter to his parents in September 23th 1945, stating that both he and Maria were well and survived the War, he only described an idyllic paradise where he was fortunate to be able to work: 'I was once enriched by the inhabitation of a primeval forest in the mountains, dripping with moisture and fantastic because of the aerial roots of the pandanus palms. There, too, I had to cut a clearing in the abundant vegetation, suggesting to be my studio'. In this primeval 'forest studio' Hofker created several of his most iconic Balinese oil paintings, all performed on paper and showing his most favourite objects, the portraits of the enchanting Balinese women in all their sublime grace and charm. A particular example of one off these iconic pieces on paper is this recently discovered painting that is offered here presenting not one but three girls. She in the foreground is masterfully portrayed with her long coal-black hair pulled back under a crown of red hibiscus flowers, sitting in a relaxed position with tilted shoulders, leaning against a brick wall that opens up behind her. Her eyes are humbly lowered in a staring gaze that is reinforced by her slightly opened lips. Her arm is stretched over a copper bowl that is touched by the wonderful light of Bali, as shown by Hofker in various colours, ref