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by Carla Bianpoen

A warm applause welcomed Hilda Soemantri at her retrospective exhibition in the Cemara-6 Gallery here on December 17 p.m. Friends, admirers and VIPs from the art world were there to pay homage to her as a person who has dedicated over 30 years to the education and development of art in this country.

Hilda indeed must be accorded a place in the history of Indonesian modern art. As she started to use clay as her medium to personal expression, she brought ceramics from a utilitarian craft into the abstract and expressive cauldron of modern art. A person of many firsts, she boldly introduced installation art when the term was still alien even for many of her peers, The first Indonesian female scholar of art history with a PhD degree from abroad, she filled the gap left by other scholars of ancient Javanese art, by shedding light on the terracotta figurines of Majapahit, one of the largest kingdoms in SE Asia with its seat in East Java.

To work with clay is not for every artist, but somehow she chose to enter that department at ITB, although her fascination with ancient Javanese art would have given archaeology a better chance. Ever since her high school years, the various candi of Central Java had held her in their grip and she often visited the National Museum. I would look with wonder at the massive sculptures in the National Museum, she reveals, and ponder the driving force that made their materialization possible.

Her high school visits to the temples had a lasting impact on her mind and soul. Even as she made modern art her main preoccupation, she would return to the world of ancient Javanese art at the end of the day, to replenish her spirit with the treasures of her ancient heritage.

 Clay then became medium par excellence to seek the truth of her life’s realities. Feeling the clay, its texture, the course of its breaking up--its cracks, edges, flaws and fragments, it all led her to the dimmed corners of her subconscious, and intertwining with occurrences in nature, she ultimately arrived at the realms of the contemplative, transcending into the ethereal, sometimes alluding to the austerity of Zen, the awesome power or the serene majesty of mountains. When asked, Hilda reveals the series of Gunungan or Cosmic Mountain (1998) is what she liked best. The time in which she created the series also stands as the most enjoyable in her creative life. During 1996-98, she was a sessional lecturer and an Orion Fellow at the Department of History in Art/ University of Victoria. 

The most extraordinary in the person of Hilda Soemantri is that she excelled both in modern ceramic art and as a scholar of ancient Javanese art who highlighted the figurines neglected by previous scholars, and placed them in the context of ancient Javanese art as a whole. The book titled Majapahit Terracotta Art, published by the Ceramic Society in 1997, is appreciated as a useful and reliable resource that might lead other scholars to undertake new studies.

Hilda Soemantri is a very private person. Dolorosa Sinaga, a noted sculptor and one time colleague at the Jakarta Arts Institute says (IKJ), Hilda prefers to listen rather than to talk, seeking solutions rather than entertaining fierce confrontation. But she is firm in matters of principle. A point in case was a student’s art work using men’s underwear, to be displayed in the IKJ exhibition space. Hilda flatly refused to give permission. Vulgarity was not reconcilable with education – full stop.

To her students, she is an instructor who combines strong discipline with a warm and gentle heart, a friend available to help at all times. Lydia Poetri,  a ceramic sculptor reveals how Hilda sent an office boy to ‘fetch’ her when she tried to play truant. Lydia says she owes her unquenchable fire of love for ceramics to Hilda Soemantri, her guru, colleague and friend. Hilda may look as hardened clay after firing at high termperature, but is in fact she is gentle to the core and enjoyable in every respect.

Hilda Soemantri was born in Jakarta (1945). She grew up in the Netherlands, pursued her secondary education in Indonesia. Her fascination with ancient Javanese art almost made her choose archaeology as her major, but somehow she decided to become a ceramist and entered the Bandung Institute of Technology, Department of plastic Arts graduating in 1969. As she married an architect working in Jakarta, she moved to the capital city and became involved in administrative and educational matters of the Arts Academy. Pursuing further studies on a Fullbright scholarship, she left for Rhode Island and obtained her Master’s degree of Fine Art at Pratt Institute, Long Island. Back in Indonesia, she lectured at the same Academy she came from. She established the Studio for ceramic art with an emphasis on ceramic craftmaking skills as a basic for modern ceramic art. She has served as Secretary, and first Dean of the Arts Institute.

The past three years have left her almost immobile as the cancer that had started to eat way her body a decade ago grew ever more severe, and almost left her immobile. However, as is exemplified in her retrospective exhibition, rigidy of form does not mean rigidity of expression, and the fire of the kiln still blazes in her eyes.