Portrait of a Friend

Lee Man Fong, born in Canton (Guangzhou), China in 1913, stayed briefly in Singapore before settling in Jakarta in 1932. Studying on a Dutch scholarship from 1946 to 1952, he was one of three first-generation Indonesian painters who obtained their formal art education in the Netherlands. During those years, he travelled and exhibited widely before returning to establish Yin Hua, an artist association in Jakarta in 1955. As his reputation grew, he was made official presidential painter and chief curator of the collection in 1961 by the then President of Indonesia, Soekarno.The sensitive linework in ‘Portrait of a Friend’ attests to Lee’s skill in handling the pastel medium.

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