Arie Smit was born on April 15, 1916 in the town of Zaandam, The Netherlands.
He studied design at The Academy of Arts in Rotterdam.
He was fantasizing about the tropics at an early age, due to the tales of an Indonesian school friend.
His chance came in 1938 when he was drafted into the Army and was sent out to the Netherlands East Indies.
He was stationed with the topographical service, where he acquired his graphic technique.
While working on contour maps of Bali, he planned to visit the island.
In 1956 Arie Smit settled on Bali. While most Western artists have concentrated on the people of Bali, Arie has focused on the villages, the palm trees and the emerald green rice terraces. But most of all he's focused on the temples.
In 1960 he lived in a house near Campuhan in Ubud. The casual meeting with 2 Balinese boys spark a whole new art movement, the "Young Artists" style, with Smit becoming known as the "father" of this naive, brightly-colored style.
Light is of paramount importance to an artist, and Smit has spent a lifetime trying to capture the 'riotous light in Bali'. Not only as it's broken by the tropical vegetation but as it sparkles off the ocean waves rolling onto the shores of Sanur, Lebih and Buleleng.
He has tried to match this light by what he calls his 'broken colours', applying mosaic-like touches of paint, brushstroke upon brushstroke, while never quite covering the underlying layer.
He had numerous successful exhibitions, not only in Bali, but also in Jakarta, Singapore and Honolulu.
Suteja Neka in 1994 opened the Arie Smit Pavilion in the Neka Museum. The whole top floor of this building is devoted to works by Arie Smit, showing his progressive change of style from "poetic realism" into a somewhat more abstract rendition of reality.
As he says, "Art is a kind of loving, a wish to communicate with the viewer." And here in the Arie Smit Pavilion his vibrant art, celebrating the beauty and wonder of Bali, will continue to speak to art lovers from around the world of his love for life and for his adopted country.
