When the high quality of Balinese art became worldly recognized,
more and more Balinese artworks disappeared to other parts of
Indonesia and foreign countries. Thus, the fear among the Balinese
people, and also Rudolf Bonnet (a Dutch painter, 1895-1978), raised
that the most precious art would be lost forever and would never come
back to its origin. Another need among the artists was to improve
their skills without losing their own identity as Balinese artists.
Located in the center of Ubud city. The
museum was built by the association of artists. This association later
established a foundation in 1930 with the name " Pita Maha" The
foundation including artists in Ubud and surrounding, Kamasan, Klungkung
and Denpasar. Each area had the coordinator. The pioneer of the
association was Mr. Rudolf Bonnet a German artists, Walter Spies a Dutch
artist, and two royal family of Ubud, and a local artist I Gusti
Nyoman Lempad. The foundation decided to build a permanent exhibition
pavilion which was later known as " Puri Lukisan Museum " This
association and it's foundation had succeeded in organizing various
exhibition in Indonesia and abroad such as Singapore and French. World
war II had stopped the activity and can only be re-started again in
1947.
In 1954 the permanent exhibition hall were built on what is
now the location of Puri Lukisan Museum. The collection of the museum
are mostly the historic style of Bali Painting style. Some works of
famous Bali artists and foreign artists living in Bali between 1925
through 1950. Small number of carving arts are also on display. The
biggest number of collection is the type of classical Ubud painting
and new Ubud painting style. Classical style is the type when Western
influence not yet applied.
The collection numbers an amount of
paintings and woodcarvings of outstanding quality, which found their
origin in the beginning of this century. These art pieces were
collected by Rudolf Bonnet during his years as a curator for the museum.
Bonnet tried to inspire Balinese art by selecting and promoting the
artists. Thanks to his artistic talent Bonnet achieved to create fully
inspiration for the Balinese artists, whom results are shown as
permanent collection in the Museum Puri Lukisan.
