Lot 120
KHOO SUI HOE
b. Kedah, 1939
BOY WITH PINK LIPS, c.1960s
Signed ‘SUIHOE’ (lower right)
Oil on board
54cm x 37cm
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Kuala Lumpur.
ESTIMATE RM 18,000 - 22,000
PRICE REALISED RM 20,160.00
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Khoo Sui-hoe likes to do small portraits of ordinary people who could be strangers he meet in the streets. People of all races in the region. To him, it is more spontaneous and fun. The boy with fringe haircut and a prominent nose stands out, but more so for his pink lips. Ditto, the title.
Sui-hoe knew he was in the right path when he won 1st Prize (Oil) in the Malaysian Art and Craft competition in 1965 and a Honourable Mention in the prestigious Salon Malaysia in 1969. He studied at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art in Singapore, graduating in 1961. Under the John D Rockefeller III Fund award, he studied at the Pratt Graphic Centre in New York in 1974.
Sui-hoe is the spiritual leader of the Utara Group, formed in 1977. He set up the Alpha Utara Gallery in Penang in 2004, along the lines of his previous Alpha Gallery, which he set up in Singapore in 1972.
He was given a solo in 1978, by the Penang Museum Board, for works from 1963-73. In 2007, the Penang State Art Gallery honoured him with a Retrospective called The Painted World of Khoo Sui-hoe, which was followed by a mini retrospective of his works from 1967-2013, by The Art Gallery Penang, in 2013.
In 2015, he held a two-part An Overview exhibition at the Private Museum, based on works still with him and those in the collection of Datuk Seri Lim Chong Keat.
REFERENCE
The Painted World of Khoo Sui-Hoe, A Retrospective, Penang State Art Gallery (2007) |
