Male subjects were few and far in between in Dato' Hoessein Enas's portrait portfolio in oil and pastels, unless it was commissioned with the subjects mostly being royalty or corporate bigwigs. His subjects were invariably about beauties, of various ethnic origins – nubile young damsels or the more sophisticated 'sitters'. This 1955 pastel of a strapping handsome young lad garbed in brown satin baju melayu with a tengkolok (headgear), of all colours pink, was never documented. In 1955, Hoessein was still deemed an 'Indonesian', where he originated from (he was only given Federal citizenship in 1956). Who the boy in the pink tengkolok is, is anybody's guess, but exuding all the innocence, the boy exudes a tender freshness and innocence, and soft skin tones, and has an air of confidence about him. In an interview with Ooi Kok Chuen (New Straits Times), Hoessein had intoned: "One should look into a subject rather than at it. I have always been interested in people – people as human beings." Pioneer artist Dato' Hoessein Enas was accorded a Retrospective by the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, in 1966, 10 years after being granted Malaysian citizenship. The Sultan of Selangor made him a royal painter in May 1990 and conferred the Dato' title on him in March 1991. He is best known for his 56 commissioned paintings in the Shell collection called The Malaysians, done in 1956, the same year he founded the Angkatan Pelukis Semenanjung (later SeMalaysia), based on a similar society he helped form in Medan, Indonesia. His awards include the Unesco fellowships (1960), the United States fellowship (1969), an Asian Foundation grant (1960) and the Colombo Plan (twice in 1968 and 1976).