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In 1930, a young artist from Mexico, by way of Manhattan, and his stunningly beautiful wife were set down by a Dutch packet steamer on the northern coast of Bali. Neither artist nor island would ever be the same. In two visits to Bali, amounting to just 20 months' residency, Miguel Covarrubias created an impressive body of drawings and paintings of the life of the island, and carried out the research for a dense 400-page book about its culture. Amazingly, Island of Bali, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1937, is still the indispensable work on the island's complex rituals and philosophy.

Despite the enduring renown of Covarrubias' book, the art he made in Bali has been neglected, rarely exhibited and mostly unpublished. Covarrubias in Bali, a gorgeous new book by Adriana Williams, the artist's biographer, and Yu-Chee Chong, now reveals the impressive mastery and range—and surprising quantity—of Covarrubias' work in Bali.

By the time he arrived on the island, several accomplished foreign artists had already been there, drawn by the romantic lure of a tropical paradise free of the stresses and neuroses of what was coming to be known as "modern civilization." While other artists, including the German painter Walter Spies and the Dutchman Rudolf Bonnet, were busily creating the myth of the Island of the Gods, concentrating on the exotic beauty of its bare-breasted maidens and graceful adolescent boys, Covarrubias delved deeper, following his anthropological research into the soul of Bali.

Covarrubias has always been underestimated as an artist. Unlike his celebrated compatriots Diego Rivera and David Siqueiros, who painted public murals on a heroic scale, Covarrubias made his name in the humble medium of the caricature. He arrived in New York at age 18 (after dropping out of high school when he cracked a teacher's skull in a fit of anger), and found fame and a good living almost immediately with his witty, irreverent ink portraits for glossy magazines such as the New Yorker and Vanity Fair. By 1930, when he married Rosemonde Cowan, a popular Broadway dancer and choreographer, he was a fixture in Manhattan's smart set.

Yet Covarrubias, true to his Mexican roots, was always ambivalent about the glittering world of café society. For their honeymoon, he and his wife Rose sailed to Bali, in search of a more contemplative life. When they arrived, the Covarrubiases were befriended by Walter Spies, who lived at the royal court of Ubud, in the interior of the island. "The months flew past while we roamed around the island with Spies," wrote Covarrubias. "We watched strange ceremonies, enjoyed the music, listened to fantastic tales, camped in the wild parts of western Bali or at the Sanur coral reef." And, as we now know, he was furiously painting and sketching all the while.

Covarrubias' newly revealed work in Bali stands among the finest of his career: his deceptively polished, Art Deco-inspired compositions and intensely colorful palette were a flexible medium for the artist to explore every aspect of life on the island. His portraits of Balinese women capture their frank sensuality without the overlay of leering orientalism frequently found in the work of other foreign artists in the tropics—perhaps because of the similarities between village life in Mexico and Bali. The paintings of the island's legendary dance performances are carefully observed yet imbued with a full measure of mystical atmosphere.

Bali welcomed its early foreign visitors with splendid hospitality, inviting them to imbibe deeply and freely of its unique civilization. Yet it's questionable how much the island ultimately got out of the bargain, aside from the mixed blessing of a billion-dollar-plus tourism industry. Covarrubias was one early guest who made a major contribution. He was not a great artist, but he was a brilliant observer: for generations, everyone with a serious interest in Bali has been grateful for his book about its culture. Now everyone interested in Covarrubias is indebted to Williams and Chong for this fascinating, beautiful study of the artist's stays in Bali, which reveals how much more he accomplished while he was there.

• Jamie James
• A new book rediscovers Miguel Covarrubias' delightful depictions of 1930s Bali