Frame size: 91.8 x 243.4 cm
Malaysian-born Chia Yu Chian (1936-1990) was the first Southeast Asian recipient of a scholarship from the French government to study in Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Paris (1959-1962). An active participant in the local and regional art scene in the 1950s and 1960s, Chia had exhibited extensively, regionally and internationally in France (1959) and Germany (1960), with his first solo exhibition in Malaysia (1956).Showing traces of the influence of Cubism, ‘Untitled (Kampong Scene)’ depicts a much-loved subject of Nanyang (South Seas) artists – roadside hawkers, small gatherings of villagers and stilt houses in an idyllic rural village of Southeast Asia. The composition of this large work is divided into zones in a manner that takes little note of conventional perspective.
