Yeoh Jin Leng

Born: 1929

Education:  1957 - Chelsea School of Art, London

　　　　　1961 - Hornsey College of Art,University of London

Rice Fields, Trengganu is an earlier work by the artist, produced just after he had returned home from his studies in an English art college in London. Yeoh Jin Leng has always been interested in nature and organic forms and he is possibly one of Malaysia’s finest landscape painters. At the time this work was created, he was teaching in a secondary school in the town of Kuala Trengganu, which is noted for its many fishing villages and the surrounding scenic paddy fields. This particular work is, perhaps, the artist’s most reproduced painting, and is notable for its vast, panoramic view of the rice fields depicted just before the harvesting season begins. The artist has used central perspective to draw the viewer’s eye deep into the distant horizon. The golden yellow of the ripened paddy fields is treated in a manner that is both expressive and filled with radiant tropical light. The eye is led dramatically into the picture, over the golden fields, only to be halted by a distant Malay kampung with its gently swaying coconut trees and a distant hill, set against the sky.

Nature is depicted pregnant with a seasonal ripeness and is truly majestic in its splendour. Powerful, confident brushstrokes suggest a sense of inspired immediacy in the capturing of the moment. The work also evokes a sense of space and atmosphere that is indeed memorable. In hindsight, the celebratory mood of this work, idealising that landscape, may have also reflected an exuberance and an optimism that was typical of the romantic, euphoric visions of our newly-returned artists during those years immediately after the attainment of our independence.

Syed Ahmad Jamal

Born:        1929

Education:  1951 - Chelsea School of Art, London

1964 - School of the Art Institute,Chicago, Illinois

1973 - University of Hawaii, Honolulu

Syed Ahmad Jamal had followed in the wake of Tay Hooi Keat and had studied in an English art college from 1951 to 1956. He had returned home in 1957 and was overwhelmed by his re-discovery of the tropical landscape and its forms, that he had been separated from for so many years. Nipah Palms may thus be viewed as being a celebratory work, bearing in mind that it was created in the same year that this nation had also achieved its independence, in 1957. The exuberance of the work, employing both expressionist and cubist influences, may even be read as denoting the new optimism and euphoria of nationhood. And indeed, in so far that the land allows for a sense of place-ness and a sense of emotional belonging, this particular muddy, riverine scene, located near his hometown of Batu Pahat, may be viewed as especially significant to the artist in his re-living of his childhood memories and recalling the rural contexts within which he had been brought up.

The work operates on two levels. On the one hand, it is descriptive and depicts a cluster of recognisable Nipah palm plants that are usually found along the muddy banks of Malaysian rivers. The artist has captured the essence of organic growth as the plants seem to reach restlessly upwards towards the sky and the big, oval-shaped cloud at top, bearing the seeds of the life-giving rains. On another level, the work is interesting for its formal experiments, reflecting Cubistic and Expressionistic influences. The artist's organization of the plant and cloud forms is tightly structured and reiterates an interest in formal, planar inter-relationships. The two dimensionality of the picture plane is emphasised. The nervous expressive energy contained in this work, already foretells the emergence of a highly significant, major expressionistic artist within the Malaysian art scene.

Tay Hooi Keat

Born: 1910      

Education: 1948 - Camberwell College of Art, London

Tay Hooi Keat was one of the first Malaysian artists to undertake his formal studies in an art college in England, from 1947 to 1950. His return home heralded a new generation of artists trained in English art colleges during the Fifties and the Sixties. They would subsequently project artistic approaches toward creativity quite different from that of the Chinese-educated artists associated with the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art, for whom Post-Impressionism and Fauvism had been the popular stylistic influences. The emergence of Tay Hooi Keat and others, trained in the English art colleges, signalled a shift of emphasis towards a new creative orientation that would eventually lead the Malaysian art scene toward abstractionist commitments.

Plantscape was produced by this significant artist in 1959. It indicated the appearance of a more cerebral approach in Malaysian art, with a more convincing employment of the difficult Cubist idiom. It is not with naturalistic appearances and pictorial schemas that this artist was involved with but with the problems of re-organising specific colours, shapes and planes on a two dimensional surface, in order to emphasise complex spatial viewpoints and spatial experiences. In this case, a cluster of fruiting banana trees has been fragmented and re-organised on the flat pictorial plane. The banana trees have become almost disguised by their fragmented forms and the flattened planar effects. The artist has, as it were, incised volumes and voids on the flat canvas surface, thereby introducing new modes of spatial perception and a more complex way of defining reality. Plantscape is a very tightly structured work and was one of the significant works that signalled a new interest in the pursuit of abstract, non-objective reality within the local art scene.

Chia Yu-Chian

Born: 1936

Education: 1958 - Nanyang Academy of Fine Art, Singapore

                     1959 - L’Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris

Chia Yu Chian had studied at the Ecoles des Beaux Arts art academy in Paris during the late 1950s and was a prolific artist throughout his life. Still life painting was one of his fortes and this particular work, revealing syncretic qualities incorporating Western and Chinese influences, is indeed a most accomplished work. The flat empty, pale blue background on which the table exists, reminds us of a traditional Chinese painting devise emphasising the empty void. It heightens, in this case, figure/ground relationships. The aerial perspective view of the tilted table top with its placement of things, which include a fish, a crab and lemons plus the two wine jugs placed on the floor, has allowed for a suggestion of airiness and weightlessness. The forces of gravity have been considerably reduced as is the case in traditional Chinese still life paintings. One half expects the fish and the crab to slide downwards. The rich, painterly treatment of the oil medium is however expressive, modernist and Western. This is clearly a painting about the subtle formal synthesis of differing cultural values, influences and sensibilities. It has become one of Chia Yu Chian’s best known and most reproduced paintings.

Georgette Chen

Born: 1907

Education: 1926 - The Art Students' League New York

                    1927 - Academie Colaross, Paris and Academie Biloul, Paris

Georgette Chen came initially to Penang from China in the mid-1950s in order to escape the Communists. She taught art for a number of years in a Chinese high school in Penang. She had been invited to come here by Tunku Abdul Rahman, who was a personal friend of the widowed artist and her late husband. She was trained in art academies in New York and Paris during the 1930s. She later joined the teaching staff of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art in Singapore during the 1960s where she became an influential teacher. She exhibited regularly at the National Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur during the late Fifties and the Sixties in the annual open art exhibitions:

She was noted for her sensitive portrait paintings and her highly accomplished still life paintings. This work is an excellent example of a still life executed by her, revealing her superb technical skills and her eye for details. Influenced by Post-Impressionism and especially by Vincent Van Gogh, her works, however, projected a softer, feminine quality that was essentially joyous in her celebrations of the local environment. The diagonal thrust of the composition of this work has been enhanced by the lovingly rendered details of the rattan baskets, the ripened fruits and the Chinese crockery pieces. Her paintings were often imbued with warm colours, suggestive of the warm tropics.

Tew Nai-Tong

Born: 1936

Education: 1958 - Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore

                              1967 - L’Ecole Nationale Superiure des Beaux~Arts, Paris

Tew Nai-tong was a student at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art during the early 1960s and had continued his artistic studies at the Ecoles des Beaux-Arts academy in Paris during the late 1960s. Like so many of the Nanyang artists, he was influenced by the School of Paris idioms such as Post-Impressionism and Fauvism. His preoccupations with the rustic, idyllic rural scenes of Malaysia was motivated by romanticised visions of the place and its native inhabitants. And he has continued to project this artistic vision up to the present time. The panoramic scene depicted here is that of a fishing village in the east coast state of Terengganu. The artist has employed aerial perspective effectively to draw the viewer’s eye inwards toward the distant horizon. A cluster of attap roofed wooden huts and a platform raised on wooden stilts are highlighted. Also depicted are fragments of the cluttered sandy beach filled with the fishing boats, as well as the deep blue sea and cloudy sky, all used effectively to evoke the flavour and ambience of the traditional Malay fishing village. Several figures have been included to suggest busy activity going on. The treatment of the oil medium, used here expressively in the impasto mode, lends to the work a warm sun-soaked atmosphere.

Lu Chon Min

Born:        1933

Education: 1955 - Nanyang Academy of Fine Art, Singapore

                    1958 - L’Ecole National Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris

Lu Chon Mm was, like Lai Foong Moi, a graduate of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. He had also continued his artistic studies at the Ecoles des Beaux Arts academy in Paris during the late 1950s. The influence of the School of Paris, namely Fauvism and Cubism is clear in this expressive painting depicting two rows of terrace houses set amidst coconut trees and green bushes. A lonely Malay woman is depicted passing between the buildings. The idyllic, laid-back atmosphere of the work was typical of the works produced by the Nanyang artists during the period. The artist has restricted his palette to a few bold colours and the works innate energy emerges from the bold, broadly rendered, thick brushstrokes that have been used to structure and define the depicted forms. The pictorial space as been considerably flattened. There is a controlled economy of means here that belies the structural complexity and power of the work. Look more closely and we will notice the influence of the French Fauvist artist Georges Roualt, who was Lu Chon Mm’s favourite modern artist.

Lee Cheng Yong

Born: 1913      

Education: 1930s- Shanghai Academy of Fine Art, China

Lee Cheng Yong was another of the pioneer pre-War painters who had studied in mainland in the Beaux-Arts type art academies during the 1930s. In China, he had absorbed the ideatic influences of the School of Paris. In this impressive painting, the influence of Post-Impressionism is clear. The influence of Paul Cezanne can be detected in the artist’s treatment of the solidly rendered rock forms and the tight pictorial structure. The emphasis is clearly on mass, volume and space. The confident brushstrokes and controlled, somber tonalities define distinct planar relationships and emphasise light effects as well. The artist has convincingly captured the monumental weightedness of the rock forms. Spatial depth is compressed and the rock forms are interspersed with stretches of the sandy beach. The quiet, isolated atmosphere of the beach, filled with the rock forms, has been punctuated by the frothy white waves shown breaking against the rocks. This is a very accomplished work indeed revealing an economy of means adopted by the artist to achieve the desired effects.