In 2019, Jolly Koh wrote about ‘Remembering Tanneleon’: “As I grow old, memories accumulate and I think of relatives and friends of the past lost forever… I also think about the paintings that I did… the old paintings remain present and alive before me…” In 1996, Jolly Koh revisited and reincarnated the “sensual moment” behind the first Tanneleon (1968), now in the collection of the National Gallery Singapore. Much had changed in the intervening years, but Tanneleon, like the picture of Dorian Gray retained the spirit and exuberance of the eternal paradox though not as large as the original 264 x 107cm dimension. The 1968 work, which was also shown in the 10th Sao Paulo Biennale in 1969, has two distinct blobs of cerulean blue in separate spheres, while the 1996 work pushes the cerulean blue to the top half with a half-orb top and vertical Fan Fern sticks like a rainbow stanchion. Fan Fern has a 1968 pedigree. In his book, Artistic Imperatives (Maya Press, 2004), Jolly Koh avers that colours evoke memories and other associations. Jolly Koh is one of the Magnificent 7 of the GRUP fame – historic 1967 exhibition and 2017 reprisal. He is best remembered for his Jolly Koh@76 survey exhibition in 2017 hosted by Henry Butcher Art Auctioneers celebrating 60 years in art. It traced a career since his first solo in 1957 at the age of 16! Jolly @ 83, an exhibition of recent paintings by Jolly Koh, was held at KEN Gallery (organised by Henry Butcher Art Auctioneers) in November 2024. And he has great academic credentials, to boot: National Diploma in Design at the Hornsey College of Art in London; Art Teacher’s certificate at the Institute of Education in London University; and Doctor of Education and Master of Science at Indiana University, USA. After a brief stint teaching at the Mara Institute of Technology and Sabah’s Gaya College, he taught in Melbourne and Adelaide, and back to Malaysia at the MSC College (now SeGi), before deciding to go fulltime painting.