Born in Surakarta (Solo) in central Java, Dullah was most known for his portraits and landscapes in naturalism manner. He studied painting with Affandi and Sudjojono and is recognised as an educator and a proponent of Indonesian Revolution. During the late 1940s, he started documenting the Indonesian Revolution and depicted the struggle and the fight of the revolutionaries through his paintings. In the 1950s, Dullah was appointed the official palace painter for President Sukarno and he also became the first curator of Sukarno’s art collection and coordinated the publication of the first edition of the collection’s catalogue in 1956.