A woman reading and writing is a given today, but in pre-Merdeka days, conservative families discouraged their daughters from going to school, what more venturing outdoors. This 1974 work of an older woman reading resonates with another by Chia Yu Chian in 1977, when he depicted a schoolgirl reading a book. Reading nourishes the mind. This notion of gender equality had also to do sensitively, in part, to old religious strictures, what with gender segregation in certain States in Malaya. It is significant that in August 1997, Malaysia ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) (with reservations). Chia’s portrait of a matured woman on an armchair looking up in a reading respite, exuded calm, and as if reflecting on what she had read so far. The stirring thought process is what books can do to the reader, male or female. Chia Yu Chian made his mark in Paris, when he was given a French Government scholarship, to study at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris in February 1959-1962. In Paris, he had the distinction of his works being accepted for exhibitions 15 times, a few even with honorary mentions (Salon des Independents and the Societe des Artistes Francaise). Apart from solos in Paris (Galerie de Villiers and the Salon de Paris), he also exhibited in London (Britain) and Hanover (West Germany) in 1960. In Paris, he was commissioned to do a grand mural titled, Life In Malaysia for the Malaysian Embassy. Although he held a successful solo exhibition on his return, at the British Council in Penang, his major exhibitions were at the National Art Gallery (1989), Kuala Lumpur; the Memorial Exhibition at The Art Gallery, Penang (1997); the Chia Yu Chian In Nanyang exhibition (Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore, 2009), the grand exhibition held by the family, Chia Yu Chian Enlivened (Selangor-Federal Territory Chinese Assembly Hall, 2017); and Chia Yu Chian: Private Lives (Ilham Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, 2019).