The colorful collection of paintings
at Museum Le Mayeur

Museum Le Mayeur can be found straight on the beach between Jalan Hang Tuah and Inna Grand Bali Beach hotel, one of the largest hotels in Sanur.

At first I couldn’t find the place but luckily I ran into a local boat man, who almost held me by the hand to show me the museum’s entrance.

 

Entrance to the museum Le Mayeur

 

The museum used to be the former house of the Belgium painter Adrien Jean Le Mayeur de Merpres who arrived in Bali in the 1930’s.

First he settled in the little village of Klandis, east of Denpasar where he met the famous legong dancer and local beauty, Ni Polok, when she was 15 years old.

She agreed to model for his paintings and lots of the paintings you see today in Museum Le Mayeur feature Ni Polok.

 

Ni Polok

 

Besides these paintings there are numerous impressionistic paintings of Le Mayeur’s travels in Europe, Africa, India and the Pacific.

Le Mayeur not only found inspiration through Sanur’s beautiful location with the lagoon and the reef but also found in Ni Polok his love, whom he married three years later.

The house is set in a garden with beautiful frangipani flowers, Balinese statues and palm trees.

It is easy to see why Adrien Jean le Mayeur loved this place so much...

 

Museum Le Mayeur is right at the beach

 

One of the rooms in the museum used to be the living-room where the painter and his wife received family, friends, local artists and artists from abroad.

The other rooms were ex-art studios where Le Mayeur painted his wife. Even until his death in 1958 he kept on painting because the house was planned to be turned into a museum.

After the house became a museum, Ni Polok was allowed to exploit the house on a commercial basis.

Now and then dinners were organized but Ni Polok realized that they could harm the collections of paintings so a Bali Nights Cafe was built on the eastern side of the museum instead.

 

 

Now Le Mayeur Museum is in the hands of the Indonesian government. This seems obvious with three civil servants on duty being more asleep than awake.

I’m not kidding, there was even one guy who slept with his feet on the ticket counter when I was there.

The rooms are in need of some maintenance and I think the paintings could be better displayed for visitors to enjoy them more.

 

The painting 'fishes in a pond'

 

Nonetheless it is still an interesting place to visit. Le Mayeur Museum (0361-286201) is open every day from 8am to 2pm on Sunday till Thursday, 8am to 11am on Fridays and 8am to 12.30 on Saturdays. Entrance fee is Rp2000 per person.

Next to the museum there’s a small souvenir shop called Ni Polok and here you can buy some postcards that feature Le Mayeur’s paintings.