Book Review: Theo Meier a Swiss Artist Under the Tropics

By Barrie | October 21st, 2007 | 2 Comments »

Theo Meier, like other artists such as Walter Spies and Rudolph Bonnet, found absolute paradise in Bali for the creative pursuits. In a recently published book - Theo Meier A Swiss artist under the tropics – by Didier Hamel there is clarity in the previous statement as reviewer Carla Bianpoen writes:

Theo Meier
A Swiss artist under the tropics
By Didier Hamel
Published by Hexart Publishing,
Jakarta
172 pages
Hardcover

Among the foreign artists finding solace and inspiration in the tranquility and spirituality of Bali, Theo Meier takes a special place. He spent 20 years of his life in Bali, and 25 years in Thailand. The book launched in Jakarta recently is therefore an asset that many of his fans and art collectors would welcome.

Both entertaining and enlightening, it takes the reader through 172 pages of text and plates, recounting the artist’s struggle to disengage from the conventions of his Western environment, his adventurous journey to the East and his fascination with the cultures that were untouched by Western civilization.

Interchanging political, cultural and social events with the artist’s extremely well-written descriptions, the book reads like a log of the artist’s life journey, enlivened with colorful paintings and snapshots of his social interactions.

Keeping the tone of a story teller, and often quoting the artist whose vivid description of what he sees is fascinating, the author Didier Hamel also pays attention to the little anecdotes found in Meier’s notes.

There was for instance the political incident, when Russia’s visiting premier Khrushchev — instead of praising a Balinese dance performance — gave the undiplomatic remark, “It is all very nice but it does not bring any foreign currency into your country”. Soekarno was so annoyed, he immediately ordered the dancers to stop.

But how actually did Theo Meier get into painting? The book begins with an overall view of the situation in Europe.

“The 1900s were a momentous time in human civilization marked by major historical events.”. It notes the impact of social evolution as reflected in the arts. It was a time of change, both technological and social, and new streams of art emerged. It was in this period that Modern Art emerged, die Bruecke was formed in Germany and Cubism and Futurism were flowering.

Amidst such a situation, Theodor Wilhelm Meier, or Theo Meier for short, was born in the Bubendorf/Basel-Campagne in 1908.

Whether the overall situation had an influence on the artist to be is not clear, but it should be noted that the city of Basel had already a Kunsthalle, first erected in 1872, which evolved into a leading contemporary art institution.

Theo Meier appeared to have a strong desire to be an artist, and he managed to enroll at the Basel School for Arts and Craft. His father, a regular businessman who had other plans for his son, agreed only cautiously, thinking it was just a whim.

But Theo had made up his mind. He became an artist, and worked his way through a scholarship and short studies in Berlin and Dresden.

Lured by the romantic and exotic East as many others before him, he dreamed of going East, to the tropics. In fact he had been spurred by the works of Gauguin which depicted a primitive simplicity in Tahiti that was beyond imagination in the West.

“I was carried away into another world. At the sight of Gauguin’s paintings, I suspected that something existed there with which a painter must instinctively feel himself at home”.

Somewhere else Theo Meier explained: “Very early in my life I was deeply impressed by the writings of French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau and of course my other great major influence was the painting and writing of Paul Gauguin. “Gradually the fascinating world of the south Seas began to take an irresistible hold on me and after viewing Pechstein’s painting of the tropical island of Palau, I knew that I had to see this paradise for myself.”

Tahiti became his promised land. But his family was opposed to the idea of going there, and support was not to be had from that side. But he was determined, and he managed to gain passage on a French cargo steamer, heading for the South Seas. He was 23 years old.

But when he arrived in Papeete, the principal town and harbor of the island of Tahiti, it was a big disappointment: nothing was left of the Polynesian culture. Theo came to understand that Gauguin’s representations of Tahiti had been more fantasy and imagination than reality.

However, he still appreciated Gauguin, while he continued searching for “paradise”. He thought he had found it when he arrived in Bora-Bora, 260 km northwest of Papeete. It was once the home of Paul Gauguin, and had been an inspiration to many artists.

“There was something so fresh about that island that it seemed as if it had but that very morning risen up from the floor of the sea with the spray still shining on it,” noted Theo.

After a “tour” to the New Hebrides, New Caledonia and Australia, and journeying to Hong Kong, China and Singapore, Theo returned to Basel, and held an exhibition in the Kunsthalle. But before long, he was on his way back to the tropics,

This time he landed in Bali. He had found paradise, he stayed for 20 years.

“When I arrived in Tahiti, I was very disappointed that the culture I had dreamed about no longer existed there, but I did observe the components that Gauguin had used to build up his beautiful paintings.

“He showed me tropical nature, and this influenced me so enormously that I began looking for a place where perhaps more culture had survived, but in the same natural setting. That place was Bali. There I was shaped, and became what I am today”

He loved painting the Balinese women, who in contrast to the Polynesian women, “were only too happy to undress”. Nudes were his most favorite subjects, although landscapes and flowers also deeply inspired him.

His landscapes sometimes are overwhelmed by the heat of the sun and appear as in a blur, at other times however, the bold tree trunks stand out as wonderful highlights in the scene.

Like other foreign painters before him, he married his model Ni Made Mulugan in 1938 who bore him a daughter a year later. But for unknown reasons he divorced her in 1941.

A year later he married another Balinese, Ni Made Pegi, another model, who bore him another daughter in 1948. He was however separated for the second time, this time at the initiative of Ni Made Pegi, who left him in 1952.

He was to be married again — how could it be else, of course — to another model, this time in Thailand, where he settled in 1957 at the invitation of Prince Sanidh Rangsit, a senior member of the Royal Family of Thailand. He was offered to stay at the Prince’s summer home on the beach at Hua Hin. He married Laiad Phab Prakansriwong in 1964, four years after she had become his model at the age of 13.

He was to stay in Thailand for 25 years. But he never forgot Bali, and often went there with his new wife. He used to do so when the rains came to Chiang Mai, a time that coincided with the dry season in Bali.

Theo Meier died in 1982 in the hospital in Basel, but his ashes were partly scattered in Thai waters and partly in the waters around his beloved Bali.

Carla Bianpoen