This looks like an early batik of Dato’ Chuah Thean Teng, the Father of Batik Art, with the simplified geometric stacked forms and a preponderance of ‘cracked lines’. The ‘heavy’ air is conveyed by the stocky Lego-like woman carrying a large vessel on her head, with another part-reclining figure on the right and a partly concealed resting animal further up on the left. Otherwise, the day’s work seems done, with the use of nocturnal colours. Attap roofs ascend as if upwards although the perspective is flattened. A tree or two towers over the topography of stilt houses, with cut-outs for windows. The Lego-stubbed figure (Lego only produced mini-figures of its interlocking plastic toys in 1978) represents Man’s small role in the scheme of life, but later works project Man as dominant entities. Dato’ Chuah Thean Teng, world acknowledged as the originator of Batik Painting, brought several further innovations since he developed the art in 1953. In Chinese Art In The 20th Century (1959), Professor Michael Sullivan wrote: “In Teng, Malaya claims to have found her first national painter. Teng has conceived the idea of making pictures in batik – not just decorative designs, but large and frequently complex figure compositions.” He was the first Malaysian (after British-born Peter Harris) to be given a Retrospective in 1965 by the National Art Gallery (The NAG again accorded him a Tribute (Memorial) exhibition in 2008), while Penang accorded him a Retrospective in 1994. In 1998, he was conferred a Datoship and in 2005, Penang’s ‘Live Heritage Award’. Images of his works, Two Of A Kind (1968) and Tell You A Secret (1987) were chosen for UNICEF’s greeting cards. He was the only Malaysian in a roll of great world artists invited to take part in the Commonwealth Artists of Fame exhibition in London, to mark the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1977. He set up his flagship Yahong Art Gallery first at Leith Street, Penang, in 1953 and moved it to Batu Ferringhi in 1974.