Affandi | Paintings for sale, auction results and history

Affandi was one of Indonesia’s foremost modern artists, celebrated for an intensely expressive style that transformed everyday subjects into powerful images of human experience. Largely self-taught, he developed a distinctive technique of squeezing paint directly from the tube onto the canvas, using his fingers to manipulate the pigment into thick, gestural lines. His work combined the immediacy of Expressionism with a deep engagement with Indonesian life.

Born in Cirebon, in the Dutch East Indies in 1907, Affandi initially pursued a conventional education before turning to painting in his late twenties. He began his career producing commercial illustrations and cinema posters, gradually developing a more spontaneous approach to his subjects. Rather than idealising the world around him, he depicted its people and daily routines with unvarnished empathy. His paintings often feature labourers, market vendors and rural communities, alongside animals and scenes of domestic life.

By the 1940s, the artist had established himself as a leading figure in Indonesia’s emerging modern art scene. His vigorous handling of paint and emotionally charged compositions set him apart from the more romanticised depictions of the Indonesian landscape popular at the time. He also helped foster a new generation of artists through his involvement in Lembaga Pelukis Rakyat, or the People’s Painters Association, which encouraged direct, personal responses to lived experience.

Self-portraiture remained central to Affandi’s practice, allowing him to explore ageing, vulnerability and the human condition. Among his best-known works are Self-Portrait and The Fisherman and Borobudur and the Sun, in which the ancient Buddhist monument becomes a subject for his dynamic treatment of light and form. He was also drawn to scenes of everyday life, depicting figures at work and at leisure in paintings such as Cockfighter and Reclining Nude. In 2016, Affandi and Grandchildren sold at Christie’s Hong Kong for HK$7,840,000.

He represented Indonesia at major international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale in 1954, helping bring Indonesian modern art to a wider audience. Affandi continued painting until his death in Yogyakarta in 1990. His work remains a defining contribution to Southeast Asian Expressionism, distinguished by its physical intensity and unflinching attention to ordinary life.