Joan Yip
International Specialist
This auction has ended. View lot details
You may also be interested in
Lot 117
But Muchtar(Indonesian, 1930-1993)Pyramid, Sphinx, and the Sun
22 – 29 September 2025, 12:00 HKT
Online, Hong KongHK$60,000 - HK$80,000
Looking for a similar item?
Our Southeast Asian Modern & Contemporary Art specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistAsk about this lot
But Muchtar (Indonesian, 1930-1993)
Pyramid, Sphinx, and the Sun
1975
signed and dated BUT MR 1975 (lower left)
oil on canvas
100 x 80 cm (39 3/8 x 31 1/2 in)
1975
signed and dated BUT MR 1975 (lower left)
oil on canvas
100 x 80 cm (39 3/8 x 31 1/2 in)
Footnotes
Provenance
Collection of the artist's family.
博特・莫克塔
金字塔、獅身人面像和太陽
油彩 畫布
1975年作
簽名：BUT MR 1975 (左下）
來源
藝術家家族收藏
But Muchtar spent his formative years studying at the Bandung Institute of Technology under the tutelage of Dutch painter Ries Mulder in the 1950s. It was around the same period when Abstract Expressionism flourished and came to prominence in America. The artist continued his studies in the United States at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Sculpture Centre of New York in the early 1960s. In 1962, he became a research fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
But Muchtar's exposure to Abstract Expressionism motivated him to adopt a highly abstracted mode when creating artworks. As a painter, sculptor, and educator, he eventually developed his own distinctive style and pioneered the development of abstract painting in Indonesia. But Muchtar's dynamic and multifaced oeuvre reveals his versatility and dedication to an eclectic approach to abstract art and modernism.
Amazed by the mesmerising beauty of Giza, But Muchtar created the present work in 1975 after returning home from his trip to Egypt. It is an unusual subject matter of his art, since But Muchtar rarely made paintings depicting a specific place or location. Imbued with a sense of spiritual mystery, the enthralling Pyramid, Sphinx and The Sun demonstrates the artist's unique abstract visual language and skilful appropriation of colours, lines and geometric shapes.