Lot 120
Yong Mun Sen
b. Sarawak, 1896 - d. 1962
Three Friends
signed (lower left)
oil on canvas laid on masonite board
60 x 45cm
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Selangor
ESTIMATE RM 60,000 – 120,000
PRICE REALISED RM 50,000.00 |
Three’s A Crowd — oft have we been told in Western idiom and in Chinese adage, which favours pair, especially one with the opposite sex, you know the mandarin ducks kind. But in movies, three seems to be a magical number of camaraderie. Take the 3 Amigos, Bollywood’s 3 Idiots, even Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Western, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. As Malaysia has three dominant races, namely Malays, Chinese and Indians, plots are intertwined among characters from the three communities, and not forgetting, the P. Ramlee Malaysian trinity of Do Re Mi with P. Ramlee, A. R. Tompel and Ibrahim Din in the starring roles. There’s also the comedy, Tiga Abdul, of three brothers and three sisters and their scheming father. In Three Friends, Yong Mun Sen tries to capture the alacrity of boyhood and the antics they share together — catching fishes, getting in scraps, climbing trees, or catching up sitting by the rocks. His figures are often swarthy, representing a cross-cultural depiction, but one suspects that it’s the dim light of day that adds to the complexion. Mun Sen adopts a slanting diagonal across the canvas as if the three seated friends on a promontory might topple over the edge. They know the place so well, so familiar with it, thus they chat happily in a relaxed mode. All of them are clad in sarong. Before the advent of Tamagotchi and computers, flying kites, catching fishes and playing tops were the only simple pastimes.
Pioneer artist cum photographer Yong Mun Sen, nee Yen Lang, of Taipu Hakka stock, led a chequered life who devoted his life to painting. He was a fourth-generation Malayan, born in Sarawak, had aborted art studies in China, but basically picked up the rudiments by himself, and is best known for his watercolours. Among others, he set up the Tai Koon Art Studio (cum photography) (1922) and Mun Sen Studio (1930) in Penang, and in 1936, he co-founded both the Penang Chinese Art Club and the Singapore Society of Chinese Artists, and in 1953, the Penang Art Society. He was accorded a Memorial Exhibitions in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur (1966), the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur (March 1972) and Penang State Art Gallery (PSAG, September 1972). In 1999, the PSAG honoured him with a Retrospective. He has contributed much to the development of the arts. |