One of the most iconic motifs, Sujdana Kerton executed this scene of a family walking homeward with a buffalo in woodcut. In 1964, the motif was used as the design for the UNICEF Christmas cards distributed internationally. Sudjana Kerton was the first Indonesian artist to be given this opportunity by UNICEF.

A man leads his family into the scene, as a boy straddles a buffalo.

Women are shown as the centre of family life and the domestic realm, able to nurture children, sustain a sense of community life, and work on household activities.

A mother carries her baby in a sling, known as a selandang or kain gendong, while simultaneously pounding rice. Another woman is absorbed in her chores near a pile of ripe, yellow bananas that she gathered.

Sudjana Kerton’s work is full of child-like nostalgia, as he reminiscence of the innocence and simplicity of Indonesian rural life.

As if recalling his own childhood, he paints three children at the very centre of the composition. A boy and a girl appear to clap their hands together, playing a melodic game while a small girl stands watching with her toy, in awe of the older children’s mesmerising play.

Kerton returns to this theme of the golden harvest repeatedly in his oeuvre. As with this 1983 painting, the fields in Indonesian Village life are executed with heavy, yellow dashes varying in size and thickness, densely occupy the scene to produce a magnificent and vibrant symphony of painterly expression.

The artist further developed this motif throughout his career and even experimented with the traditional medium of batik.

In the current work, the two sellers carry baskets overhead after catching fresh fish from the river nearby. Kerton paints the rippling waves in vibrant movement, bestowing the river its importance as the villager’s source of livelihood.

Sudjana Kerton’s Fish Sellers will be offered in Day Sale.

Embedded within the complex composition are Kerton’s whimsical depictions of animals. Monkeys swing mischievously from branch to branch. The artist captures colourful birds in flight, tangled within the golden crops or lingering by the river stream.

Hidden within lush verdant greens, a maiden sits upon a rock and allows water to stream down her long, black hair. Nearby, another woman bends down in the shallow end of the river, unaware that a young child is mischievously running towards the water.

Three men gather around in a squatting position known as nongkrong, preparing for a cockfight: a beloved tradition in Javanese and Balinese culture. Kerton reveals how the cockerel was also seen as an extension of the male ego, as he depicts a man brandishing his prized bird as he walks towards the group. At the heart of cockfighting was not necessarily the bravado of competition, but also the the underlying values of community spirit that generates an effervescent atmosphere.

Kerton depicts an intimate moment between two figures sitting on the patio of a roofed hut. One figure ungrudgingly cleans the other's hair; a form of ritualistic grooming called mencari kutu that perpetuates notions of closeness, empathy and bonding.

A basket of fish has been left on the roof of the house to dry.

Kerton’s attention to detail is delightful as he delineates the variegated batik patterns on the sarongs of two figures who appear to have returned from a hard day’s work in the field or from a trip into town.

The leaves in the foliage are painted with kaliedescopic shades, variant colours that heighten the liveliness of the greenery.