 |
Le Mayeur’s style is impressionistic, using short strong brush strokes of rather thick paint and palate of rich colors (liberated by his contact with Theo Meire?). This combination results with an agitated sense of movement in a sharp but harmonious combination with an inevitably idyllic scene. These usually include one or several topless portraits of Ni Pollak in dance or reflective poses against a sunny garden background with twisted frangipani tress and fallen flowers true visions of paradise. His canvases presently fetch around $.150.000 a piece. Despite theft and conservation problems several of best canvases are still at his house now museum in Sanur which is well worth a visit.
|
An eccentric member of the Belgium royal family born in Brussels
in 1880, Le Mayeur rejected his heritage and sought to follow in the footsteps of the
first white primitive, Gauguin, by sailing off to Tahiti and French Polynesia to become a
painter. These places were already in decline in Gauguin’s time and sorely
disappointed Le Mayeur. He ended up in Bali in the 1930’s which he found much more
inspiring. His muse was his beautiful wife, the famous Legong dancer, Ni Pollok,
whom he married when he was well into his fifties. Together they settled in a wonderful
home on Sanur beach which is now a colourful but dilapidated museum much in need of
conservation (funds have been granted by Belgium for this purpose but they seem not yet to
have reached Bali). During the 1930’s numerous tourists, just off the round the world
cruise boats which docked in Bali to every week, would visit to be served drinks and
snacks by his gracious topless wife and her pretty servants. This so galled the head of
the Colonial government towards the end of the decade that he sent a warning to him that
this immoral behavior must stop. Le Mayeur wrote to his cousin the king of Belgium, who in
turned wrote to Queen Wilhelmina of Holland, who in turn wrote to the Governor -General of
the Dutch East Indies, who in turn told the puritanical governor of Bali to shut up.