Ismail Hashim (1940-2013) was an artist and educator who became an important figure in art photography in Malaysia. He was known particularly for his hand-tinted gelatin silver prints, rich in detail of the everyday humdrum and are often imbued with humour and irony in their titles. Ismail started taking art photography seriously in 1973, when he met his lecturer Robert Crock in Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang. He received a national recognition in 1977 when he won the major prize in the National Photography Competition with Berdiri atas Kaki Sendiri atas Dua Roda (Standing on Your Feet on Two Wheels), a grid photo collage comprising over a hundred images of traders on bicycles and motorcycles. Between 1991-92, Ismail photographed over 80 mailboxes along rural roads between two towns in Perak: Bagan Serai and Taiping. These snapshots of mailboxes were composed into several versions of grid works. The grid series, including Post Boxes Along Bagan Serai Taiping Road, is a result of a demanding darkroom process where every image is cropped, then burned and dodged to achieve Ismail’s final composition.
