Claire Holt, a dancer and an expert on Indonesian art, was born in Latvia but lived most of her life in New York. She started her research about Indonesian traditional dance at the end of the 1930s, and returned to Indonesia in the mid-1950s to observe the changes and development of art in Indonesia after World War II. Holt experienced two important periods of Indonesian cultural development, before and after the country gained independence from the Netherlands and Japan. It is very important to notice the significance of Holt’s photography during her research in Indonesia. Her research produced more than just a history, more than just documents mapping the art and culture of Indonesia from ancient times to modern. Amongst her colleagues she was considered a teacher and a mentor, and was often photographed herself with a camera in hand. Holt made and collected thousands of valuable photographs for her research. Enthralled with dance, her photographs document the rich diversity of dance forms across the archipelago, as well as many monuments, temples, and religious artifacts. In addition to these traditions, however, Claire Holt also recorded the early development of Indonesian modernist painting by capturing the portraits and paintings of artists such as S. Sudjojono, Affandi, Hendra Gunawan, Oesman Effendi, Zaini, Salim, Basuki Resobowo, Trisno Sumardjo, Wakidi, Djoni Trisno, But Muchtar, Mochtar Apin, and many others. Many of these photographs—of the ancient ruins and the emerging trends of modernist art—became part of her influential book, Art in Indonesia: Continuities and Change (1967). ▶7.1