Works of Patrick Ng Kah Onn in private collection are hard to come by, what more this with a provocative composition of a male nude, crouching on all fours on a small tuft, butt to viewer, au naturel. All around him is water and marshes. What he is doing there, the way he is postured, are open to conjecture. For one, it could herald the Biblical Fall of Man (Genesis 3:19). Maybe, not a ritualistic homage like in his magnum opus, Spirit Of Earth, Water And Air (1958), in the National Art Gallery collection. The colours are kept light, understated, and almost homogenous, with pervasive sepia tones. Four works by Patrick Ng have previously appeared in the Henry Butcher Art Auction. They are the batik Penjara (undated), HB March 24, 2019; The Dancer (1964), HB November 12 2017, which fetched his record price; Dancing Couple (undated), HB April 21, 2013; and Collage In Blue (1963), HB May 6, 2012. Patrick Ng Kah Onn was one of the wunderkind in the Wednesday Art Group coterie formed by Peter Harris. He often signed his canvases in Jawi, as he had learnt to read and write Jawi, as he did Mandarin when he moved to London and where he taught Art before he died of liver cancer, aged 57, in 1989. He received a Sino-British fellowship to study Art in London, first at the Hammersmith College of Art, and then the Wimbledon and Southlands Teacher Training College (Fine Art and Textiles), and taught in Hammersmith until 1972, when he had a breakdown, according to Peter Cocquerel in an interview with writer Ooi Kok Chuen in Kuala Lumpur. Cocquerel revealed that Patrick Ng became more interested in classical music particularly by Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich in his later life, and drama, and had even written a play.