Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
passes a school and becomes Jalan Kajeng, a little road paved with graffiti-covered stones
that runs down to Jalan Raya Ubud in ten minutes or so. The stones are inscribed with the
names, messages and doodlings of everyone who helped finance the paving of the lane.
Symon's Studio
Jl Raya Campuhan • Daily 9am-8/9pm • Free • 0361 974721, symonstudios.com
With its eye-catching outdoor displays, the studio-gallery of American-born artist Symon ,
across the road from the Hotel Tjampuhan , is hard to ignore. The multi-levelled building is a
gallery packed with Symon's paintings, sculptures and other creations, as well as a working
atelier for the artist and his assistants. Symon has lived in Bali since 1978 and is best known
for his vividly coloured portraits of sensual young Balinese men. He also works on the north-
east coast of Bali. An insightful book about Symon's work, Property of the Artist by Philip
Cornwel-Smith, is available at the Ubud studio, as well as at some local bookshops.
WALTER SPIES IN CAMPUHAN
The son of a German diplomat, Walter Spies (1895-1942) left Europe for Java in 1923,
and relocated to Bali in 1927. He set up home in Campuhan and devoted himself to the
study and practice of Balinese art and music. He sponsored two local gamelan orchestras
and was the first Westerner to attempt to record Balinese music . Together with the Cana-
dian composer Colin McPhee, he set about transposing gamelan music for Western instru-
ments, and with another associate, Katherine Mershon, encouraged Bedulu dancer I Way-
an Limbak to create the enduringly popular dance-drama known as the Kecak (Monkey
Dance).
Spies was an avid collector of Balinese art , and became one of the founding members of
the Pita Maha arts association in 1936. He is said to have inspired, if not taught, a number
of talented young Ubud artists, among them the painter Anak Agung Gede Sobrat, and the
woodcarver I Tegelan. Characteristic of Spies's own Balinese works are dense landscapes
of waterlogged paddies, peopled with conical-hatted farmers - a distinctive style that is still
much imitated. There's currently only one Walter Spies painting on show in Bali; it's at the
Agung Rai Museum of Art in Pengosekan .
In 1937 Spies retired to the village of Iseh in the east, turning his Campuhan home into a
guesthouse , the first of its kind in the Ubud area. He died in 1942, drowning when the ship
deporting him as a German national in World War II was bombed in the Indian Ocean. The
guesthouse became Hotel Tjampuhan .
Blanco Renaissance Museum
Just off Jl Raya Campuhan, next to the Penestanan turn-off • Daily 9am-5pm • Rp50,000 •
0361 975502,
blancomuseum.com • Phone ahead for free transport
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