Coinciding with the 100-year anniversary of the birth of pioneer artist Mohd. Hoessein Enas (1924-1995), Henry Butcher Art Auctioneers is pleased to offer this early self portrait of the "Father of Malaysian Portrait Painting". It is dated 1949 when the artist would have been 24 or 25 and was painted in the same year that Hoessein moved from Penang to Kuala Lumpur to pursue a career as an artist. It is a significant moment in his career, but also in the history of Malaysian painting, capturing Hoessein's personal transition from trishaw driver and street artist to being Malaysia's first professional portrait painter. It serves as an advert for a gifted but newly established portrait painter seeking employment. As well as being a momentous year in the career of Hoessein, 1949 is also the year that Tunku Abdul Rahman returned to Malaysia from his studies in England. His arrival in Penang in January 1949 coincides with Hoessein's meeting with the art dealer Frank Sullivan. Sullivan would later serve as press secretary to Tunku Abdul Rahman and it is worth noting that Hoessein Enas's portrait of Sullivan, painted in the same year, can be seen in the National Art Gallery Malaysia. Tunku Abdul Rahman served as the first prime minister of the newly independent Malaysia in 1957. Hoessein would paint his portrait on at least two separate occasions, while Tunku Abdul Rahman would write the foreword to Hoessein's "Malaysians", an illustrated book of 1963, portraying the varied faces of a newly independent country. Pioneer artist Dato' Hoessein Enas was accorded a Retrospective by the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, in 1966, 10 years after being granted Malaysian citizenship. The Sultan of Selangor made him a royal painter in May 1990 and conferred the Dato' title on him in March 1991. He is best known for his 56 commissioned paintings in the Shell collection called The Malaysians, done in 1956, the same year he founded the Angkatan Pelukis Semenanjung (later SeMalaysia), based on a similar society he formed in Medan, Indonesia. His awards include the Unesco fellowships (1960), the United States fellowship (1969), an Asian Foundation grant (1960) and the Colombo Plan (twice in 1968 and 1976).