Lot 051
TEW NAI TONG
b. Selangor, 1936 - d. Kuala Lumpur, 2013
SELF PORTRAIT – 3, 2010
Signed ‘NAI TONG’ (lower right)
Oil on canvas
91cm x 91cm
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Kuala Lumpur.
ESTIMATE RM 19,000 - RM 25,000
PRICE REALISED RM 21,280.00 |
With an artistic career spanning a lifetime, Tew Nai Tong was a revered figurative painter who devoured his art in the style of Nanyang and at the same time distinctively developed his own visual language. A Nai Tong picture is greatly admired for the artist’s rendition of his hallmark themes - the female form in rural settings, depictions of bird cages and kite-flying, scenes from agricultural and trade activities, illustrations of life in Bali, and the like – executed in his signature technique. Here is a rare subject illustrated in the very manner he is revered for, a self-portrait captured in the sacred act of painting.
Tew Nai Tong received his early art education at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore (NAFA), graduating in 1958. He worked for a while to raise funds for his studies at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts, Paris (1967 - 1968). In the early years, he signed his work as ‘Chang Nai Tong.’ His first solo was at the British Council, Kuala Lumpur in 1964 and he had his Retrospective at the National Art Gallery in 2007. He taught at the Malaysian Institute of Art from 1969 to 1980, the Central Academy of Art from 1982 to 1985, and the Saito Academy of Art (head of department, 1986 - 1988). He concentrated fulltime in art in 1992. His awards included Second Prize, Chartered Bank Mural Design Competition (1964); Shell Watercolour Award (1981); Best Award, Esso (1982); Dunlop Watercolour Award (1983); and Grand Prize Asia Art Award (Malaysia) in Seoul in 2009. He was the co-founder of the Malaysian Watercolour Society (1982 - 1983) and the Contemporary Malaysian Watercolourist Association (1994) and the now defunct Le Beaux Art Gallery.
REFERENCE
Odyssey, Tew Nai Tong Retrospective, National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, 2007.
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