Where family, art, and entrepreneurship unite to create a unique artistic expression
Venue: Peranakan Museum
Date: 11 October 2024 - 31 August 2025
Admission:
- $6 for Singaporean/PR
- $18 for Adult Tourists and Foreign Residents
- $12 for Student & Senior Tourists and Foreign Residents
Peranakan Museum’s latest exhibition charts the lives, works, and careers of three visionary Peranakan women from the port-city of Pekalongan, Indonesia, also known as the World’s City of Batik.
Nyonya Oeij Soen King, her daughter-in-law Nyonya Oeij Kok Sing, and her granddaughter Jane Hendromartono - revealing how each became a batik master in their own right. The word “nyonya” is the Indonesian equivalent of Mrs, used by the artists during their lifetimes.
About Batik Nyonyas Exhibition
This is the first exhibition at Peranakan Museum focusing exclusively on a unique lineage of batik makers. The story unfolds through about 200 objects, including 60 pieces from the National Collection of Oeij family batiks produced between the 1890s and 1980s on display.
Through the works shown, you’re invited to experience the artistic legacy of batik in an intimate, complex, and tangible way. The journey starts with Nyonya Oeji Soen King (1871 - 1950), a master of natural dyes who innovated within established styles.
She was one of several women who fronted batik businesses in Pekalongan in the 1890s, just as it was emerging as Java’s leading batik-making centre. Nyonya Oeij was a creative entrepreneur who produced finely drawn batiks in an individualistic style.
Her batiks feature meticulously hand-drawn designs on white backgrounds, laboriously coloured using only natural dye. She avoided repetition through an asymmetrical and irregular interplay of colours, motifs, and filler patterns (isen), improvising within established frameworks to achieve visually complex designs.
The work above infuses classic Javanese geometric patterns and design compositions with elements from other cultures, as well as new designs and motifs, such as a buketan (bouquet) and kembang teratai (flowering lotus) pattern.
Next up is Nyonya Oeij Kok Sing (1895 - 1966), a master of colour who reimagined batik in unconventional hues. She was running the family workshop by 1929 and during this period, fast-dyeing European synthetic dyes expanded the range of tones, leading to a surge in production and creative experimentation.
She produced cloth in mind-bending combinations of colours and patterns. She was soon recognised as one of the top batik makers in Pekalongan. Notably, she was the only Indonesian artist who signed and stamped her batiks with dates, suggesting that she considered batik to be an important art form.
And Jane Hendromartono (1924 - 1988), was the third generation of the Oeij family and an artist of many names who adapted to challenging social conditions. She created innovative interpretations of the batiks in the viral Kudus style. She was quick to respond to the national Batik Indonesia style, producing modern batiks for fairs and official events, which found ready buyers among the elite.
In the 1970s she moved into the realm of high fashion, collaborating with top fashion designers to develop Indonesian haute couture. She established a successful export business by the 1980s that offered a diverse range of textiles to overseas buyers.
Personalise Your Batik Style
Discover in-gallery interactive stations that include tactile on the batik-making process. You can discover your own personal batik style with a fun mobile quiz and the result will be revealed in The Batik Shop, a space in the Level 3 Exploration Zone dressed up to emulate shops in Singapore and Indonesia.
After completing this fun experience, you can redeem a special illustrated bookmark from the Visitor Services Counter on Level 1 to take home as a souvenir.
Exhibition Details
If you are interested in delving deeper into the world of batik, keep an eye out for some drop-in performances and craft activities as part of the exhibition’s Weekend Festival and Batik stories, as well as monthly curator tours and a series of talks.
For more information and events to see, please visit https://www.nhb.gov.sg/peranakanmuseum/
