The cache of 56 works by Dato' Hoessein Enas commissioned over three months by Shell Ltd is one of the best known in Malaysian Art. Called The Malaysians, it represents 56 oil, watercolours, pastels and sketches to commemorate the formation of Malaysia in 1963, never mind Singapore's exclusion in 1965. In September 2007, Shell Ltd donated some 18 portraits to the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur. Though Hoessein reverted to painting the indigenous people of Borneo in the 1990s, this Kelabit oil-on-canvas from the landmark 1963 commission, from a collection in the United Kingdom, is a gem of a discovery. One would have thought that all portraits from The Malaysians were accounted for, and lo and behold, there is this oil on canvas on a fully clothed indigenous Kelabit Dayak woman of Sarawak, without showing the ritual tattoo. Ornaments hang from her elongated ears and her neck, while her hands are decked with bangles. She wears a skirt made of a tree-bark cloth called tapa. Wearing a fez-like hat, she seems musically inclined, playing on a flute with mellifluous melody. A prominent pioneer artist, Indonesia-born Dato' Hoessein Enas was accorded a Retrospective by the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, in 1966, 10 years after being granted Malaysian citizenship. Made a 'royal painter' by the then Sultan of Selangor in May 1990, he was conferred the Dato' title by the same Sultan in March 1991. He is best known for having founded in 1956 the Angkatan Pelukis Semenanjung (later SeMalaysia), and headed it until 1964. It was based on a similar society he formed in Medan, Indonesia. He had the distinction of having his first solo exhibition abroad, at the Charniel Gallery, Chelsea, London, in 1960. Among his accolades were the Unesco fellowships (1960), the United States fellowship (1969), an Asian Foundation grant (1960) and twice the Colombo Plan, in 1968 and 1976.