Lot 008
TEW NAI TONG
b. Selangor, 1936
DRYING FISH, 1974
Signed and dated ‘NAI TONG 74’ (lower right)
Oil on canvas
65.5cm x 65cm
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Kuala Lumpur.
Private collection, Kelantan.
ESTIMATE RM 8,000 - 12,000
PRICE REALISED RM 16,500
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Tew Nai Tong has ventured to the littoral fishing village from his usual illustrations of villages and cattle-rearing community. Drying fish is usually done by women after the fishermen’s return from sea. Fishes with stronger odour are sorted out, gutted and dried in the sun to make into all kinds of fish products. Here, the artist resorts to more flat colours dominated by warm orange hues indicating the heat of the sun with more burnished tones in the foreground where the fish are hung by the tail.
Born in Klang, Nai Tong studied at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore and went to Paris in 1968 to futher his education at Ecole Nationale Superieue Des Beaux Art. He is the Advisor to several art societies including Contemporary Malaysian Watercolourists Association and International Watercolour of Asia. He held his first solo at British Council, Kuala Lumpur in 1964, and had participated in numerous group exhibitions locally and abroad. He won several awards including Second Prize, Chartered Bank Mural Design Competition in 1964, Shell Watercolour Award in 1981, Best Award, Esso Malaysia in 1982, Dunlop Watercolour Award in 1983 and Grand Prize, Asia Art Award (Malaysia), Seoul in 2009. He was honoured with a retrospective exhibition at National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur in 2007.
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