A study from Joseph Tan's Pop Graffiti phase depicting tubular forms, carefully intercepted along an axis graph. Despite having his works featured in numerous Malaysian travelling exhibitions abroad, Joseph Tan had relatively few works in his four-decade career, where he held only two solos – one in 1968 (Samat Gallery, KL) and the other in 1973 (Universiti Malaya, KL). He is remembered for his Love Me Series, Dungun Series, Formation Series, Endau Rompin Series and Tambun Series. Reason for the paucity of works was also because he was deeply involved in academia (Mara Institute of Technology, for 25 years) and administration (acting director of National Art Gallery besides being a member of its board of trustees for five terms; general manager of Hong Leong's Nanyang Gallery of Art; and director of Studies in Land & General Institute of Art and Design, which included a 1996 AusAsia conservation programme). He obtained his Fine Art diploma at the East Sydney Technical College, National Art School New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and was awarded a Fulbright-Hays scholarship for his MFA at The School of Art Institute of Chicago. He had also taught art in the Granville Boys High School.