The French flavour, or the Fauvist strokes were not so evident in this 1976 Sultan Abdul Samad Building oil painting. The Indo-Saracenic or Neo-Mughal style of the building contrasts sharply with the towering skyscrapers that sprouted in the vicinity. If anything, the painting veered more towards the Nanyang Style with a locale of colours, taste and ambience. If prodded why not so, Tew Nai Tong would say: “We study French techniques, but not their style.” After graduating from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art in Singapore in 1958, Nai Tong furthered his studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, returning in 1968. He started teaching at the Malaysian Institute of Art in 1969-80, the Central Academy of Art in 1982-85, and then the Saito Academy of Art in 1986-88 before deciding to become a fulltime artist in 1992. His first solo was at the British Council in 1964 and he was being accorded a mini-retrospective by the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, in 2007. Nai Tong won 2nd Prize in the Standard Chartered Bank Mural Design Competition (1964), the Shell Watercolour Award (1981), Best Award in Esso (1980), the Dunlop WatercolourAward (1983), Grand Prize Asia Art Award (Malaysia) in Seoul in 2009. He was co-founder of Malaysian Watercolour Society and the Contemporary Malaysian Watercolorist Association and Le Beaux Art Gallery.