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Clowns are a popular topic in literature, art, films and entertainment to represent the human condition and foibles. This distorted even grotesque rendition done by Datuk Ibrahim Hussein during his soujourn in New York veers between the comical and the macabre, reality and artifice. Reminescent of his Octopi organic protoplasms, it presages his dominant figure persona in later decades. It might refer to the clownish Harlem Globetrotters of whom Ib, as the iconic artist is better known, had met earlier. But it may portend deeper social message as Ib's presence in London and New York came in the throes of fervent social changes of the Counter Culture, of the Hippies Movement and Pop Art. The clown for all the playful antics is a sad figure inwardly, often manipulated, like a puppet on a string. As a Malay, Ib was used to the clown in bangsawan plays, for parody and comedic relief. In the late 1960s, Ib was on a roll, in the zeitgeist of the Frisco Hippie Love Movement, the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King, the Vietnam War and Beatlemania... In New York City under the aegis of the Fulbright Award and the John Rockeller II Fund, Ib held two solos, at the Newsweek Gallery and the Galerie Internationale, respectively. Datuk Ibrahim Hussein achieved several international "firsts" like being the first Malaysian to have taken part in the Venice Biennale (1970), awarded the Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum (1997) and being featured in the tripartite exhibition with the greatest artists of the time, Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali, in Kuwait (1977). Other international awards stamp his world-class, chiefly the Order of Andres Bello of Venezuela (1993), the Order of Bernardo Higgins (Chile's highest honour to a foreigner, 1996), the Japan Foundation Cultural Award (1988), and the XVIII Prix International D'Art Contemporain de Monte Carlo (1984). He had the unusual distinction of being conferred the Datuk title three times, and was accorded a Retrospective by the National Art Gallery Malaysia in 1986. In 2007, he won the Anugerah Tokoh Melayu Terbilang. He set up his own museum and foundation in Langkawi in 2000 after 11 years of planning, marking it with the Langkawi International Festival of Arts (LIFA) in 2000. He had organised the Club Mediterranee Asian Arts Festival in Cherating (Pahang) in 1988 and in Bali (Indonesia) in 1987. Ib studied at the Byam Shaw School of Drawing and Painting and the Royal Academy in London.