Portrait of Pramoedya Ananta Toer; Poet & novelist; Author of Buru Quartet

Credit Line: Gift of the Artist 2012, Collection of SMU

Indra Leonardi is one of Indonesia's leading portrait photographers. In November 2012, he had his first solo exhibition in Singapore titled "Bits of Me – Portraits by Indra Leonardi" at de Suantio Gallery. He exhibited a series titled ‘Indonesian Portraits', which he has been working on since the 1990s. The series is a testament to both the photographer's craft and his sensitivity to his sitters. It features Indonesian thinkers, artists, business leaders and statesmen, and can be viewed at the Administration Building and Office of Core Curriculum.

This portrait is of Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1925-2006), a leading intellectual of the Indonesian left and a writer of fiction. He was taken prisoner two weeks after the abortive coup attempt in September 1965. Sent to a prison camp on the island of Buru, he was held there without charges for 14 years. It was there that he composed his epic tetralogy Buru Quartet, which traces the historical, social and political forces that came together to create Indonesia through the story of a young ambitious Javanese political activist and journalist who comes of age in the waning years of Dutch colonialism. Three of the tetralogy—"This Earth of Mankind", "Child of All Nations", and "Footsteps"—are available at Li Ka Shing Library.

On the exhibition caption for the artwork, Indra Leonardi says of the portrait:

"Having Pramoedya stand in front of his books was a way for me to tell the story of a great Indonesian intellectual and novelist. The window bars of his library evokes an uneasy link to Pramoedya's past when he was a political detainee."