Soemantri Widagdo was born in Pekalongan on the north coast of Java and his family moved to Jakarta when he was three. He was brought up a Catholic and was deeply influenced by Christ’s teachings. After graduating in 1974 from the Jesuit’s Kanisius College in Jakarta, Soemantri went on to receive a Bachelors in Chemical Engineering from the Institute of Technology Bandung in 1981 and a Masters and Doctorate in 1991 at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey and the University of Pennsylvania in the USA. He has worked as an engineer, researcher and educator throughout his professional career (1985-2009) in the USA and from 2010 in Southeast Asia.
Soemantri has been an avid researcher in Balinese visual art tradition since 1994. He gained his knowledge of the Balinese aesthetic through a six-year apprenticeship with the celebrated Balinese Master Ida Bagus Made (1915-1999). He is the co-author of several Balinese art books. He was the international liaison and chief foreign curator at the Museum Puri Lukisan, Ubud (1995-2015).
Soemantri is the founder of the TiTian Bali Foundation (2016); a non-profit organization whose mission is to discover, nurture and develop Balinese artists. Presently, Soemantri serves as the founding chairman on the advisory board of TiTian.
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