Popo Iskandar, born in Garut, West Java, Indonesia in 1927, studied and lectured at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) from 1954 to 1961 before moving to the Teacher’s Training College where he stayed till 1993. He was well respected as an intellectual and art critic, having written for various Indonesian publications between 1958 and 1995. For his significant contributions to the arts, he was conferred a cultural award by the Indonesian government in 1980; and attained a lifetime membership from the Jakarta Academy.Popo’s education at ITB pronounced his universal approaches towards art and his artworks often combine elements of Impressionism and Expressionism with hints of Cubism. In ‘Self Portrait’, the boldly coloured face, set against an equally striking red background, provokes the viewer to confront the portrait in its entirety. The placement of the face in a bottom corner of the canvas further raises central questions regarding the individual and the portraiture genre.
