AUKE CORNELIS SONNEGA(Leeuwarden 1910 – Den Haag 1963)
AUKE CORNELIS SONNEGA
(Leeuwarden 1910 – Den Haag 1963)


Portrait of a man from Bali, 1953

Oil on plywood: 55,5 x 45 cm

Signed and dated “A. Sonnega 53” on the lower left corner; “Ubud. Bali” on the lower right corner.

Provenance: Acquired before 1975.



Auke Cornelis Sonnega was born in Leeuwarden in 1910. He frequented the School of Arts and Crafts (Kunstnijverheidsschool) in Amsterdam. He travelled to Batavia in 1935, working as a textile designer and writing travels’ stories for newspapers. During the World War II he was imprisoned by the Japanese Army. After the end of the conflict he moved to Bali, taking over the former studio of Rudolf Bonnet in Puri Kaleran. He lived in Bali until 1957 when he was forced to renounce to his Dutch citizenship to have the permission to live in Indonesia. He then came back to Holland, where he died in 1963.