This set of two watercolours by Tew Nai Tong with pale washes feature two different rural subjects, one on fishermen working together with their onshore female helpers after an outing at sea, and the other in a market scene under canopies to shield from the sun. The fishermen scene is more reminiscent of the style and composition of Khalil Ibrahim with both the men and women working in tandem on the beach, rain or shine. The market scene with stacks of empty crates in the background seems to suggest a time of packing up, with a thinning crowd and a few tudung-clad women around hoping to pick up some bargains from the unsold leftover vegetables and seafood. Nai Tong is known for his Nanyang Style figures with doleful eyes and elongated limbs. He followed the typical route of students trained at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art (NAFA) in Singapore (1957-1958), in furthering his studies at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts (1967-68). On his return, he taught at several academies namely the Malaysian Institute of Art (1969-1980), Central Academy of Art (1982-1985), and the Saito Academy of Art (1986-1988), before he became a fulltime artist in 1992. His first exhibition was at the British Council in Kuala Lumpur in 1964. His career culminated in a survey exhibition called Odyssey at the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, in 2007. In 2009, he won the Asia Art Award in Seoul, South Korea.