Abstract

Title
Abstract
Creator
Year/Period
1958
Region
Malaysia
Dimension
Image size: L41.7 x W35.3 cm,
Frame size: L59.5 x W53.2cm,
Object size: Mount: L48.7 x W42.3 cm
Accession No.
2000-05905

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).A student of Singapore’s pioneer artists Chen Wen Hsi (1906-1991) and Cheong Soo Pieng (1917-1983) who experimented with different art styles such as Cubism, Chia likewise endeavoured to venture beyond realistic representations. Painted in 1958, ‘Abstract’ is an example of Chia’s attempt.