작품 상세

Teng’s memorable compositions sought to celebrate the virtues of motherly devotion, concentrating his technique on the use of batik. Characterized by bold outlines painted in flowing lines and a remarkable sense of colour and design, Teng’s distinctive style marks him as an important modern artist of his time. Here, mother and daughter form a deep and loving bond, as the mother’s gesture delicately attaches a flower onto her daughter’s hair. They are both elegantly dressed in ornate fabrics, surrounded by luxuriant flowers which carries a sense of optimism, and hope for the future generation. In this scene, Teng captures the tender moments of togetherness and emotional harmony through opulent colours of green, yellow and blues. They are making up and dressing up for a festival celebration. Dato’ Chuah Thean Teng is a legend for his teeming imagination in his repertoire of batik art he invented in 1953, and invested it with different styles and techniques over the years. He was hailed by Professor Michael Sullivan as the ‘Father of Batik Painting’ (Chinese Art In The 20th Century, 1959). He was honoured with a Retrospective by the National Art Gallery (NAG), Kuala Lumpur, in 1965, and another by the Penang State Art Gallery in 1994. The NAG organised his Memorial exhibition in 2008. The Penang State Government bestowed him the ‘Dato’ title in 1998, and the ‘Living Heritage Award’ in 2005. On the occasion of the Silver Jubilee of the coronation of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II in 1977, he was invited for the Commonwealth Artists of Fame exhibition in London, after an exhibition at the Commonwealth Institute in London in 1959. His first overseas solo was in the United States in 1964. Born in China, where he had a short incomplete art tutelage at the Xiamen (Amoy) Art Institute, he settled in Penang in 1926, after a brief visit when aged 7. During the Japanese Occupation, he made political woodcuts under the pseudonym Choo Ting, but all had been destroyed. He set up the Yahong Art Gallery in 1953 and moved it to its present lot in Batu Ferringhi in 1974.