The work, Girl and Flower, represents one of Tew Nai Tong’s recurrent themes in pairing the village damsels with flowers and birds, with an air of innocence never mind that the visage is coined partly on his own face. The flowers exude sweet scene, colours, mood and in case of the helicornia, an unusual rhythmic ascension alternating left and right. It’s an idealized world. Sometimes, Nai Tong’s girls will be shown at work in the rubber plantations and padi-fields, but with an unerringly happy spirit. Sometimes, Nai Tong’s girls will just relax and chit-chat among themselves. Tew Nai Tong studied at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art in Singapore from 1957-1958 and furthered his studies at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts (1967-68). He had had several solo exhibitions since his first at the British Council in Kuala Lumpur in 1964 culminating in his major survey given by the National Art Gallery titled Odyssey in 2007. Hugely versatile, Nai Tong could paint in watercolours and oil on a variety of subjects and also sculpt. His awards included the 2nd Prize in the Chartered Bank mural design competition in 1964, the Shell Best Award (watercolour, 1981), Esso Best Award (1982), Dunlop Best Award (watercolour, 1983), and the Asia Art Award in Seoul, South Korea, in 2009. For 23 years, he had taught at various art academies namely the Malaysian Institute of Art (1969-1980), Central Academy of Art (1982-1985) and the Saito Academy of Art (head, Fine Art, 1986-1988) before he decided to go fulltime in 1992.