trenddjakarta.com, Jakarta, 20 June 2025 – Afterhours Books proudly announces the International release of BALI: PHOTOGRAPHY 1865–1939. An extraordinary 352-page art book that offers the first comprehensive history of photography on the Island of the Gods. This exquisitely produced volume by well-known photo historian Scott Merrillees. Features 479 rare and evocative images documenting Bali between the middle of the nineteenth century and the eve of World War Two.
Structured across four chronological chapters, BALI: PHOTOGRAPHY 1865-1939 traces the arrival on Bali of pioneering photographer Isidore van Kinsbergen as part of a government mission in December 1865, when Bali was almost completely unknown to the outside world, through to the first golden age of tourism on Bali in the 1930s that ended with the outbreak of World War Two.
Scott draws upon an extensive personal archive of early photographs, picture postcards, contemporary books, tourist guides and travel brochures, collected over more than thirty years, to consider the development of photography on Bali in pre-independence Indonesia. This book examines who was photographing Bali from the mid-1860s through to the late 1930s, what influences and historical backdrops shaped how Bali was photographed and how it was presented to the world.
Highlighted photographers include such well-known names as Gregor Krause, Thilly Weissenborn, Walter Spies and Gotthard Schuh through to the previously almost unheard of Curt Grundler, K.T. Satake, Ernst Alfred Gertis and Philip Hanson Hiss. The earliest professional photo studios on Bali from the 1930s are also uncovered.
This is Scott’s fifth book dedicated to Indonesian photographic history. Others include BATAVIA in Nineteenth Century Photographs and Faces of INDONESIA: 500 Postcards 1900-1945.
Published in a large-format hardcover edition with a gold-embossed textile cover, an elegant layout and a Foreword written by Gael Newton (retired senior curator of photography at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra), this collector’s volume is available in:
– Regular Edition
– Autographed Edition, signed by the author (limited)
A vital addition to the visual record of Southeast Asia. This beautiful book will appeal to scholars, collectors, and travellers with a deep interest in photography, Bali, and colonial history.
Author: Scott Merrillees
Publisher: Afterhours Books (Jakarta)
Foreword: Gael Newton (retired senior curator of photography at the National Gallery of Australia).
Editor: Diana Darling
Format: Hardcover, 352 pages, 479 images, 26 x 32 cm
Language: English
Available at Periplus, Kinokuniya, Tokopedia, Jendela Poestaka, Natan Bookstore, Ganesha Bookshop, and Kalingga
ISBN: 9786026990860
Website: www.afterhoursbooks.com
(***)
