His father, Haji Muhammad Djamhari, was a prominent figure in the Muhammadiyah Muslim organization in Garut, West Java.

Sadali's father owned several fruit garden and rice fields, as well as a printing businessman and he was an active batik merchant.

In 2014, Rafi wrote the foreword to the important Solo exhibition of his father in 2014, which was organized and held by the National Gallery of Indonesia.

Together with other graduates of the Bandung Institute of Technology, ITB, such as A.D. Pirous and Sunaryo, he found his voice in abstraction, laying the path for generations of Indonesian artists who emphasize the intuitive power of color and gesture.

Meanwhile, artists in America – including the likes of Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko – also began to break new ground in the genre, drawing attention to the very act of painting.

In later developments, Sadali's canvases offer muted colors such as earth ochre, deep blue and black.

This texture appears as if it was created by various forces and processes in nature; tension and shrinkage, cracking and breaking, peeling and tearing, erosion and weathering, ageing and crushing.

Bold colors, dots and holes, and strokes on the plane can recall images of mystery, antiquity, and mortality.

All of these signs are present in Sadali's painting, so the expression that appears is the crystallization of contemplation of religious values, mystery, and death.

They included Abdul Djalil Pirous, Ahmad Sadali, Mochtar Apin, But Muchtar, Erna Pirous, Haryadi Suadi, Yusuf Affendi, Kaboel Suadi, Rita Widagdo, Rustam Arief, Samsudin Hardjakusumah, Sanento Yuliman, G. Sidharta, Srihadi Soedarsono, Sunaryo, Surya Pernawa, T. Sutanto and Umi Dachlan.

The group of American abstract artists signed an open letter of protest addressed to Roland L. Redmond, then President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in 1950.

The letter was written in response to an announcement that Redmond was holding a national competition to select works for inclusion in a monumental exhibition entitled " American Painting Today".

As a painter, he succeeded in developing his works in a unique way and became one of the important examples in interpreting the thoughts and principles of modernism in Indonesian art.

As an important sign that gives aesthetic characteristics to the early development of Indonesian abstract art called Lyricism.