The works of Hendra Gunawan are etched in history as some of the most memorable scenes of daily Indonesian life. His works celebrate the daily lives of men, women and children in Indonesia. For Hendra, life begins with the existence of a community, and a consistent theme running through his paintings is of people at work, at play, performing rituals, in celebrations and occasionally in grief or suffering.

In 1935, Hendra Gunawan became one of the Kelompok Lima (Group of Five) artists in Bandung, West Java, where he also set up the Pusaka Sundan (Sundanese Heritage) organization. Hendra was a member of the Sanggar Pelukis Rakyat (People's Artists' Studio) in Yogyakarta, Central Java. This eventually led to his involvement in the communist sponsored Lembaga Kebudayaan Rakyat (Lekra, People's Culture Association), and he was imprisoned in the aftermath of the abortive Indonesian communist coup in 1965. Hendra later was released in 1978 upon which he embarked on a new phase in his art marked by the use of a brighter, fresher colour palette.

In Coastal Landscape with Mountain (Lot 157), Hendra explores the relationship between man and environment. The bullock carriage is a common Javanese means of transport and depicted is a band of migrants moving across the landscape. The band of travellers is reduced to an element of the larger landscape where the monumental structures of Nature - the mountain in the distance, the lake, the towering century-old trees - nestle humans and their settlements in a harmonious landscape. The present lot thus discloses Hendra Gunawan's particular worldview of nature and the place of humans within.