Abdul Djalil Pirous

In 2003, the couple started to build their dream home in Bandung, which they finished in 2004. Still striving in their 80s, they added a Gellery named "Serambi Pirous" in 2017, where they work and display their art.

Pirous is one of Indonesia's leading painters, and his paintings are displayed in the collection of the National Gallery of Indonesia, Jakarta, including the painting "The Roof of Heaven and Earth is Expansive" from 1990.

In 1973, A.D. Pirous founded the Decenta Design Studio, an abbreviation from Design Center Association together with Adriaan Palar, T. Sutanto and G. Sidharta. The members of the design bureau were known to use silkscreen as a medium for the expansion of Indonesian graphic arts. This group was an extension of their first joint work from 1971, a folio of 18 screenprint from leading artists at the ITB published under the title Grup 18. They were quite intensive in experimenting with screen printing or screen printing techniques, yet studio Decenta closed in 1983.

Of the various topics that Pirous discusses in his work other than natural objects, landscapes, daily life, animal figures, abstracts and others, calligraphy works that take up Pirous's time, energy and thoughts. For the first time since the birth of Pirous's etching work featuring Arabic calligraphy, Surah Al-Ikhlas: Pure Faith (1970), the term 'calligraphy' 'Islam' in Indonesia (two terms that stand alone and accompany 'art' and 'modern' painting) attached to Pirous.

● Best Print at the Art Show Naples, New York, United States of America (1970) ● Best Painting at the Exhibition Biennale I Arts Council Jakarta (1974) ● Best Painting at the Exhibition Biennale II Arts Council Jakarta (1976) ● Bronce Medal of the Foreign Ministry, Republic Korea (1984) ● Art Award by the Minister of Education and Culture (1985) ● Satyalancana Medal for cultural achievements by the President of the Republic of Indonesia (2002) ● Habibie Award for Cultural Studies (2015)

In 1964, he completed his education at the Department of Fine Arts, Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), where he was a student of Ries Mulder, the influential Dutch painter and lecturer. Thereafter, he continued his studies in printmaking and graphic design at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester New York, United States (1969).

Between 1964 and 2002, he worked at the FDSR-ITB, the Fine Arts and Design Faculty of the ITB - Bandung. He served as the first Dean of the Faculty of Art and Design ITB (1984-1990), and was inaugurated as a professor at ITB since 1994.

Pirous has experience working since the colonial period, the Old Order, and the New Order until the Reformation. He has produced many works since 1960. It is his works that have made Pirous a reformer of modern painting with an Islamic background in Indonesia.

As a painter, his career began in 1960, and his works have been exhibited in hundreds of national and international exhibitions. His solo exhibitions have been held five times including: Retrospective Exhibition I for works 1960–1985, at the Taman Immanuel Marzuki, Jakarta in 1985 and Retrospective II for works from 1985 to 2002, at the Indonesian National Gallery, Jakarta in 2002.

Pirous started his Islamic calligraphy work when he saw the exhibition of Ceramic Fragments, Ancient Islamic manuscripts, Al-Qur'an Calligraphy and miniature paintings which had been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, United States around the 1960s. Seeing these objects reminded Pirous of his hometown in Aceh and strongly influenced Pirous's works. Together with Ahmad Sadali and Umi Dachlan, they represents a strong Indonesian and religious component of the Abstract Art at the ITB. Their work therefore contradicts the "East versus West" statement that was used since 1954 to decry the Art Faculty in Bandung as a laboratory of the West.

Prof. Emeritus Drs. Abdul Djalil Pirous (born March 11, 1932), known as A.D. Pirous, is an Indonesian fine arts artist and lecturer. He is a pioneer in graphic design education at the Fine Arts Institute of Technology in Bandung, and the founder of an art and design studio called Decenta (1973–1983). A.D. Pirous is married to Erna Garnasih Pirous, and the couple has three children.

Since the early 21st Century, a growing international interest in Indonesian modern and abstract art has brought painters such as A.D. Pirous, Ahmad Sadali, Fadjar Sidik, Popo Iskandar and Umi Dachlan to the international art market.