Batik Nyonyas: Three Generations of Art and Entrepreneurship - Nyonya Oeij Soen King, Nyonya Oeij Kok Sing, Jane Hendromartono

Family, art, and entrepreneurship converge in the story of three visionary Peranakan women from Indonesia — Nyonya Oeij Soen King, her daughter-in-law Nyonya Oeij Kok Sing, and her granddaughter Jane Hendromartono. From the 1890s to the 1980s, they produced impressive batiks in the renowned batik centre of Pekalongan on Java’s north coast.

Their lives and works reveal how each woman became a batik master in her own right, and how they ingeniously responded to the rapid political, cultural, and economic changes of their times to run a business that produced great art.

Size: 250mm x 205mm (P)

About the Authors

Peter Lee is the author of Sarong Kebaya: Peranakan Fashion in an Interconnected World, 1500–1950 and co-author of Port Cities: Multicultural Emporiums of Asia, 1500–1900, both published by the Asian Civilisations Museum. His chapter, “Ethnicity and identity in a rapidly transforming world” will appear in the New Cambridge History of Southeast Asia. He is the founding curator of the NUS Baba House and host of the series Mark of Empire on CNA.

Naomi Wang is a curator for Southeast Asia at the Asian Civilisations Museum and the Peranakan Museum. She recently curated the jewellery galleries at the Peranakan Museum and the ACM, and was co-curator of the exhibitions Port Cities: Multicultural Emporiums in Asia and Raffles in Southeast Asia: Revisiting the Scholar and Statesman.

Barbara Watson Andaya, professor of Asian studies at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, has written The Flaming Womb: Repositioning Women in Southeast Asian History, 1500–1800 and is general editor of the New Cambridge History of Southeast Asia.

Seng GuoQuan is an assistant professor of history at the National University of Singapore and the author of Strangers in the Family: Gender, Patriliny and the Chinese in Colonial Indonesia (2023). He is currently working on a book, A Diaspora of Shopkeepers: Empire, Race and Chinese Commercial Expansion in Southeast Asia.

Didi Kwartanada writes extensively on the Chinese community in Indonesia. His works include “From Oei Tiong Ham to Ferry Salim: Visualization of the Chinese dandies, ca. 1900–2002”, Asian Culture (2023) and Tionghoa dalam Keindonesiaan: Peran dan Kontribusi bagi Pembangunan Bangsa [Chinese in Indonesianness: Roles and Contributions to Nation Building] (2016).

Darryl Lim is an assistant curator for Southeast Asia at the Asian Civilisations Museum. He recently coauthored “Curating Buddhism, fostering diplomacy: The ‘Secrets of the Fallen Pagoda’ exhibition in Singapore”, Review of Faith and International Affairs.

Lynn Chua, a conservation scientist at the Heritage Conservation Centre, Singapore, conducts technical analyses to characterise materials. She has published research on painting degradation and glazing techniques on porcelain. Her current research interests are Peranakan glass beads and dye analysis of historical textiles.

Miki Komatsu is principal conservator of textiles at the Heritage Conservation Centre. She was the conservator-in-charge of exhibitions such as Patterns of Trade: Indian Textiles for Export and the inauguration of the Indian Heritage Centre. Her research interests include fibres and dyes, the technical analysis of historical textiles, and microfadometry.