Lot 85
IBRAHIM HUSSEIN, DATUK
b. Kedah, 1936 - d. Kuala Lumpur, 2009
UNTITLED, 2001
Signed and dated ‘ibrahim hussein ‘01’ lower left
Acrylic on canvas
112cm x 112cm
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Kuala Lumpur
ESTIMATE RM 180,000 - 280,000
PRICE REALISED RM 264,000 |
Under the spotlight is a precious gem by internationally acclaimed Malaysian artist Datuk Ibrahim Hussein, or otherwise affectionately known as Ib.
He first enrolled at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore, in 1956. He received a scholarship to study at the prestigious Byam Shaw School of Drawing and Painting and the Royal Academy in London where he graduated in 1963 and 1966 respectively. A Fulbright Award saw him touring the United States and having exhibitions there. When he returned, he created his controversial May 13 1969 painting. He was chosen to exhibit alongside Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali in Kuwait in 1977. His awards included the Japan Foundation Cultural Award (1981), the Monte Carlo 18th International Exhibition of Contemporary Art (1984), the Order of Andres Bello of Venezuela (1993), the Order of Bernardo O’ Higgins of Chile (1996), the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award (1997) and the Anugerah Tokoh Melayu Terbilang (2007). A rare recipient of triple “Datuk” titles from various royalties, Ib was honoured with a retrospective by the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur in 1986. After 11 years of struggles and planning, his Ibrahim Hussein Museum in Langkawi was launched in 2000. Together with his wife Datin Sim, they organised the Club Mediterranee Asian Arts Festival in Cherating (Pahang) and in Bali in Indonesia, and also the 1st Langkawi International Festival of the Arts.
One central motif can be seen throughout Ib’s impressive oeuvre – the human figure. His early training in the British art schools had given him a firm foundation in drawing the human figure. Ib’s figures had transformed from simplified and stylised shapes as seen in one of his earliest works Reclining Women (1957) to aerial views of semi-abstract figures entangled and rolling in fluid unending motions, suggesting scenes of struggle and tumult. Ib’s pictures were inspired by events of human struggle and conflict, among others the demonstrations at Trafalgar Square, London in 1960, the 1969 racial riot in Malaysia, and the 1982 Sabra massacre. However, he was not concerned with the depiction of specific events directly or literally, but rather to convey universal statements on humanity itself. He once said: “My role as an artist is to portray man’s basic needs on planet Earth and humanity’s universal sharing in God’s little acre – the art of our time provides us ways of seeing, understanding, criticising, and appreciating the world which we live in.’
But Ib’s figures are not what set him apart from the rest; it is the distinctive ever-changing Ibrahim Hussein lines that have earned him such a high level of recognition. It was not until 1975, when Datin Sim, his wife, gave him a set of graphic pens that Ib’s canvases were filled with sensuous lines of varying weight, direction and character. The primary element of line has taken a whole different role on the pictorial surface, liberating the preconceived notions and fulfilling the roles of the other elements of form, shape and dimension customarily used in pictorial composition.
As art critic Chu Li aptly described: ‘Each point of rest is also a point of beginning and has no ending. It hums of flux and reflux, innovation and evolution, pregnant with generative tension, regenerative impulses of wave upon wave of the distinctive Ibrahim Hussein lines and colours exuding fluid forms, dancing forms and struggling humanity… His lines have attained all primary and secondary coordinates for placing ourselves in a directionless harmony of chaos, at once suggesting, hinting, symbolising for us a total experience of life.’ This exclusive use of lines had occupied Ib’s canvases right till his very last work, and if it were not for his untimely passing, the possibilities of his lined and striated surface would be inexhaustible.
Dated 2001, this untitled piece embodies the central motif of the human figure executed in the hallmark Ibrahim Hussein lines. Fluid lines of soft pastel colours interweave with one another at all directions, splaying out and gathering into clusters to constantly deconstruct and reconstruct morphing forms and depth, engaging the viewer in a continuous journey of visual rhythm. It is an expression of love and intimacy with the tumult of passion and ecstasy. In comparison to Ib’s other works, it is minimal in its colour scheme but is no less affecting and visceral. Suffused with warm orange-peach hues, the figures are depicted up-close and impersonal, as if in sequential shots of simulating motions. Here, at least three figures can be seen within the interweaving form, but to try and make out each and every figure from Ib’s labyrinth of lines is to completely miss the point, because after we are all fundamentally the same; we strive to survive within the same environment; we have the ability to feel and to love; and above all, whatever emotions we feel for one another, we are all bound together in one living unison.
A celebrated quote by Ib goes, ‘Art is the most important and unifying force that there is – and that it is a celebration of life that can help nations, races and religions come together as one.’
Now that the artist is no longer around, and with the Ibrahim Hussein Museum and Cultural Foundation closed, it is all the more precious for an opportunity to view the works by this gifted mind. This masterpiece will finally appear on public view after being held in private collection for over a decade.
REFERENCE
Ibrahim Hussein: A Retrospective, National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, 1986.
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