Works by Abdullah Ariff are hard to come by, and this, After The Monsoon Cloudburst (1955), shows up the self-taught artist for an unusually immaculate composition with the deft play of light filtering through the sparse overhanging twine-drop branches and pocket shimmers from the waterfall and running stream amongst boulders, besides the judicious depth in an ambient alcove. The locale bears discernible similar elements from a bigger work done in 1958, in the collection of the Sultan of Selangor, with an equal degree of atmospheric accomplishments. Abdullah Ariff is one of the most accomplished pioneer artists working mainly in watercolours. Although self-taught, he had served as an art teacher at the Anglo Chinese School (1932-1941), was an illustrator and pioneer political cartoonist, and had set up his own advertising agency, Ariff Advertising. His cartoons, first pro-Japanese under the Japanese Occupation, had been featured in publications such as the Penang Daily News, Dewasa, Suara Malaysia, and later the Straits Echo. He had the distinction of having had two one-man shows in Charlotte in North Carolina, at the Myers Park Methodist Church and the Mint Museum, both in 1954, and another at the Malayan Embassy in Washington in 1955. If he was prodigious, which is unlikely, precious few of his works in watercolours survived, much less his oils which can be counted with the fingers on one hand. This could have to do with his more onerous duties as an appointed municipal councillor representing Jelutong, Penang, from 1955 to 1957. He had the distinction as the only artist to have had two roads named after him in Ayer Itam, namely Jalan Abdullah Ariff and Lintang Abdullah Ariff, although the honours were linked to his being in Government. Abdullah was also one of two locals invited to the closed expatriate art group, Penang Impressionists, because his services were needed to tutor in art, while the other was accepted for his philanthropy.