Lot 007
LIM KIM HAI
b. Selangor, 1950
THREE APPLES, , 1993
Signed and dated 'K.H.Lim 93' lower left
Oil on canvas
21cm x 26cm
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Kuala Lumpur;
acquired directly from the artist.
ESTIMATE RM 6,000 - 9,000
PRICE REALISED RM 9,900
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Lim Kim Hai has shown a lifelong affinity for apples, and has chosen them as his subject matter because they are inexpensive, have longer shelf life than most fruits and there are more than a hundred varieties. In an interview with HBArt, he explained further: “When I left school in Paris, I couldn’t afford to hire models... Apple, the forbidden fruit, the fruit of knowledge, also personifies us humans.” Kim Hai paints by looking at real apples as he gets to touch and feel them, observe from different perspectives and place them in various arrangements. Apples are his props for grand designs to project life lessons and at the same time boast their beauty – shape, size and colour. Like a manual from Sun Tze, Kim Hai orchestrates the apples into inner dramas of thoughts to reflect human traits and conditions.
Little is known about Lim Kim Hai when he studied at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore from 1970 to 1972. But he created a huge impact on his return to Malaysia in the mid 1980s before relocating to his present base in Malacca. He had studied at the Ecole Nationale Superieure Des Beaux Arts in Paris from 1975 to 1980. He won several prestigious awards: Golden Award in the Salon des Artistes Francais (1982), Silver Award in the Salon Internationale Du Val D’Or (1984), Salon de Mantes La Jolie, Rotary Club Award (1986), Prix Henri Lehmann (Peinture) from the Institut de France, Academy des Beaux (1986) and the Golden and Public Awards from 52e Salon des Beaux Arts, Enghien-les-Bains (1987).
REFERENCE
Kim Hai Lim 林金海, Kosnet Press.
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