작품 상세

Before receiving formal education in Paris, Chia Yu Chian derived pleasure in the local landscapes and as he preferred more, poor urban settlements like this slum in Kuala Lumpur. The population in Kuala Lumpur accelerated at least two fold less than a decade before independence, but with grave shortage of proper housing, poor or non-existent infrastructure and the new city dwellers generally economically challenged, crowded slums were the norm. Shanty wooden houses with odd canopies sprouted like bad mushrooms around markets and business premises. Footpaths were untarred and haphazard, street lamps were far and few in between, though backlanes seemed wider to facilitate the work of night-soil carriers. It’s safe to estimate that this work was done in the first half of 1950s, before he received a French Government grant, the first in the Straits Settlement, to study at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris in 1959. But Johor-born Yu Chian was to settle in Kuala Lumpur after his return from Paris in 1962. He bought a place in Selangor Mansion after a sold-out first Malaysian solo of 110 paintings at British Council, Penang in 1962. Chia Yu Chian proved a huge success in Paris. He was accepted for exhibitions 15 times, including receiving honorary mentions in the Salon des Independents and the Societe des Artistes Francaise. He was also given solos by the Galerie de Villiers and the Salon de Paris, besides solos in London (England), Bonn and Hanover (West Germany), and after Europe in Thailand and India. He was also commissioned to do a mural, ‘Life In Malaysia,’ at the Malaysian Embassy in Paris (1962). He was honoured with Memorial exhibitions by The Art Gallery Penang (1997) and the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur (September to November 2002), and the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art in Singapore hosted ‘Chia Yu Chian in Nanyang’ in 2009, although he is not a NAFA alumni. 43 x 61cm