Born in Solo, Central Java, Sumardi worked as a
professional painter, particularly portraits drawing, after he finished the
Dutch school in 1937.
When an American artist painter W. Stoyed
visited the Sunan's palace in Surakarta in 1938, to make the potrait drawings for the Sunan's family
members, Sumardi worked for him as his assistant.
From this foreign artist , Sumardi learned a lot
about the Eroupean realism particularly the technique of drawing human anatomy.
Sumardi was then known as a realistic artist with
an exclusive romantic touch. Some of his works have decorated the walls of the
state palaces in Jakarta and Bogor. One of his works was included in the book of
the President Soekarno Paintings Collections Book IV 1957 ( Compiled by Lee Man
Fong).
He had participated in many paintings exhibitions
in Solo, Semarang, Surabaya, and Jakarta, mainly under the arrangement of the
Surakarta Cultural Center (Himpunan Budaya Surakarta)
