Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The former home of the flamboyant Catalan artist
Antonio Blanco
- complete with gilded
pillars and sweeping Spanish balustrades - is open to the public as the enjoyably camp
Blanco Renaissance Museum
. Dubbed “the Bali Dalí”, Blanco (1911-99) specialized in
erotic paintings
and drawings, in particular portraits of Balinese women in varying states
of abandon. As with countless other Western male artists before and since, Blanco fell for a
local girl, Ni Ronji, soon after arriving in Ubud in 1952, singling her out as his top model
and later marrying her. Blanco's collection also includes multimedia pieces, plus lots of idio-
syncratic picture frames created from unorthodox materials. The museum garden contains a
small aviary housing two pairs of rare
Bali starlings
.
