Malaysian artist’s works scattered around the world after his death go on show in Hong Kong
- A private banker in Hong Kong has been collecting his late grandfather’s paintings from around the world after they were sold following his death
- The level of interest generated is indicative of how eager Asian institutions are to challenge, expand and diversify art historical narratives
A coterie of art world movers and shakers gathered recently in the penthouse of the Malaysia Building in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai district for the opening of an exhibition of a relatively obscure artist from the Malaysian state of Penang called Yong Mun Sen.
Yong, who died in 1962, was born 125 years ago to descendants of Chinese immigrants in Kuching, Sarawak. He was sent at the age of five to Taipu (Dabu) in China’s Guangdong province, where his ancestors hailed from, to study Chinese painting and calligraphy.
This grounding in ink painting would become something he had in common with many other early 20th century ethnic Chinese artists who were either born in or settled in what was then British Malaya, including in Singapore. They became known as Nanyang artists (Nanyang is the Chinese for South Seas); they melded Chinese and Western art and looked to their own homes in Southeast Asia for subject matter.
The 26 paintings in the Hong Kong exhibition cover a range of media and styles that Yong adopted at different stages of his life. There are watercolours of idyllic village life and of landmarks of urban Kuala Lumpur, paintings of fishermen in bolder, more solid colours inspired by Paul Gauguin, and one charcoal portrait of a Nyonya woman (a foreign married lady) from around 1930 that’s unlike everything else on show.
