Two people are enjoying a respite on a bench by a roadside ‘hole-in-the-wall’ extension stall, chatting away (preoccupied with daily bread-and-butter issues). The stallholder is ensconced on a platform together with his products, whatever he is selling. More likely, they are related somewhat to the stall vendor. A makeshift roofing of corrugated zinc is reinforced with a cloth (tarpaulin?) extension for extra protection from the searing afternoon heat (the harsh light of the ambient colour used by the watercolourist par excellence Yong Mun Sen), with no trees or vegetation in sight. It’s 1952, a leap year, and everything was spartan, even the road was unpaved. Dubbed the ‘Father of Malaysian Painting’ in the eponymous book by Dato' Dr. Tan Chee Khuan, the legendary Yong Mun Sen was a fourth-generation Malaysian who was accorded posthumous memorial exhibitions in Singapore (1966), Kuala Lumpur (National Art Gallery, March 1972) and Penang (Penang State Art Gallery, PSAG, September 1972). The PSAG honoured him with a major Retrospective in 1999. Mun Sen boasted of solo exhibitions in London (Malayan Pavilion, British Industrial Fair, 1948), Tasmania (Australia) and Cleveland (United States). He co-founded the Penang Chinese Art Club (1936), the Singapore Society of Chinese Artists (1936) and the Penang Art Society (1953). He set up the Tai Koon Studio in Penang in 1922 (renamed Mun Sen Studio in 1930, with a branch in Northam Road the next year). Until then, he went by his birth name, Yong Yen Lang.