Painted in 1969, Asnah as this charming piece is titled, illustrates the portrait of a beautiful young woman, her shoulders exposed and she is wrapped in a sarong cloth. Her hair is tied in a high bun and her left hand is placed against the knot of her sarong over her chest. In the background, a hilly landscape is loosely outlined with trees and a blue automobile in a distant. Sourced from a private collection in Australia, this alluring painting has been kept in an immaculate condition and has returned home to viewed by the public for the very first time.
 

Dato’ Mohd. Hoessein Enas co-founded Angkatan Seni Rupa Indonesia in Medan and was its first president in 1944. He moved to Penang in 1948 and later to Kuala Lumpur when Frank Sullivan spotted him painting at Ayer Itam Temple. He received citizenship by the Federation of Malaya in 1956 and in the same year, he became the founder of Angkatan Pelukis Semenanjung (later SeMalaysia) in 1956 that he led until 1964. He was granted a UNESCO Fellowship and an Asia Foundation Grant in 1960, which allowed him a year of worldwide study tour to observe various countries’ development in art. Other grants included United States Fellowship (1968) and Colombo Plan Award (1968, 1976). He held his first solo exhibition at Charniel Gallery in Chelsea, London in 1960 and was honoured with a retrospective exhibition by National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur in 1966. He became a member of board for the National Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur from 1980 to 1989 and was conferred with the title of Royal Portrait Painter by His Majesty, the Sultan of Selangor in 1990. He received the title ‘Dato’ by the Sultan of Selangor the following year.

 

REFERENCE

Pioneer Artists of Malaysia: Paintings of Pioneer Artists from Private Collections , Dr. Tan Chee Khuan, 1992.