041
b. China, 1913 - d. 1974
Lee Cheng Yong
Friends
1954
signed bottom left
oil on canvas laid on board
75.5 x 64.5cm
Provenance
Private collection, Penang; acquired directly from artist’s family.
Estimate
RM 28,000 – 40,000
LITERATURE
Lee Cheng Yong Retrospective (Curator: Dr Tan Chee Khuan), Penang State Art Gallery, January 20-February 17, 1996
Lee Cheng Yong is arguably the most versatile of the pioneer artists who also devoted his life to teaching Art, mostly at Han Chiang High School in Penang. This work is one of his earliest extant oil pieces, and reveals an appropriation of Paul Gauguin’s Tahitian treatment of colours and raw depictions onto the Malayan Tropicana with the batik sarung designs. The three standing figures looking out to sea exude composure, with their hair done in a sanggul (bun-shaped), while a kneeling figure (apparently in prayers), faces viewer in the opposite direction, creates an unsettling feeling.
