Lot 012
Kuo Juping
b. China, 1908 – d. Penang, 1966
Lady Entering Home
signed with one seal of the artist (lower right)
pastel on paper
39 x 36cm
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Penang
ILLUSTRATED
The Art of Khaw Sia & Kuo Ju Ping
Pioneer Artists, Dato’ Dr. Tan Chee Khuan,
The Art Gallery Penang, 2014, p. 358
ESTIMATE RM 4,000 – 8,000
PRICE REALISED RM 4,480.00
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As the title suggests, Lady Entering Home depicts a woman walking towards her house while another person waits for her arrival at the entrance. The artist effectively illustrates the tranquil nature and steady rhythm of village life using muted colours.
Kuo Juping (the name was taken after a water plant) was in the pioneering batch of students at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art in Singapore but had to return a year before graduating to tend to his father’s import-export business, Sing Guan Thye & Co. He was a founding member of Thursday Art Group and Penang Chinese Art Club in 1936. He was one of the first artists to paint the ordinary people and places such as rubber estates, oil palms / cocoa plantations, paddy fields, kampung and make-shift hawker centres. He was a mentor of Tan Choon Ghee (1930-2010) who became a legendary watercolourist. Kuo died of a stroke in March 1966 at the age of 58. |