A mother's love has been immortalised in paintings, sculptures, poetry, films, theatre and songs (John Lennon’s Mother, for one). The great Persian mystic-poet Rumi intoned: “We are born of love; Love is our mother.” For Dato' Chuah Thean Teng, the Mother-and-Child theme is a recurring one for the epitome of human values and a mother’s sacrifices. In numerous such works in batik, Teng, as he is popularly known, brought out the mother’s endearing charm, her unconditional love and care, and her close interaction with her children especially when they were young, with equal attention to all no matter how many, like in this painting where the older siblings also clamour for her attention, but the baby brother, lacking mobility, has to be carried all around. The most iconic of Teng’s Mother-and-Child batik is Two Of A Kind (1968), which was one of two works chosen for UNICEF’s greeting cards. His other work, Tell You A Secret, was in 1987. As acknowledged by Professor Michael Sullivan, Dato' Chuah Thean Teng was hailed the ‘Father of Batik Painting’ (Chinese Art in the 20th Century, 1959), the only Malaysian to have started a world art genre, Batik Painting. He was among the world’s art elite in the Commonwealth Artists of Fame exhibition, to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee in 1977. The National Art Gallery accorded him an early Retrospective in 1965 and a Tribute in 2008, while Penang’s Retrospective came in 1994. Penang also awarded him with the Dato' title in 1998 and the Living Heritage status in 2005. He established Yahong Art Gallery, first at Leith Street (1953) and then Batu Ferringhi (1994), which functions as his veritable museum which includes batik works of his three sons and two grandchildren. He also held solos in the United States and London (Commonwealth Institute). His batik mural commissions included the Malayan Embassy in Canberra, Australia (1959), Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur (1960), Malayan Tobacco Company, Kuala Lumpur (1960), and Bank Negara’s branch in Penang (1974).