Footnotes

Provenance:
Acquired by a private British collector from Yahong Art Gallery Sdn. Bhd., in Penang, Malaysia, on 10 February 1989

This work is accompanied by an official receipt from Yahong Art Gallery

蔡天定　母與子　綜合媒材於布面　鏡框　

簽名：Teng

來源：
英國私人藏家於1989年2月10日購自於馬來西亞檳城之椰風畫廊

此作品附椰風畫廊之正式收據

Born in Fujian Province, China, in 1914, Chuah Thean Teng received his formal art education at the Amoy Academy of Art. He arrived in Malaya in 1932 at the age of 18 and lived and worked mainly in Penang.

Although trained in the Chinese tradition, Chuah Thean Teng preferred Western styles and was known by the name he signed on this works - Teng - throughout art circles in Southeast Asia.

Teng was the first person to adapt the age-old craft of making batik cloth for everyday wear into a medium for fine art. The inspiration to create batik paintings struck him in 1953 after the closure of his batik cloth factory in Penang. Unwilling to discard his large stock of leftover imported dyes of different colours, rolls of white cloth, wax and brushes, Teng took a turn from floral patterns of commercial batik and dabbled in figurative designs. With the help of a wax-containing tool made of brass or copper called 'tjantjing', he went through a laborious process of applying and removing wax to ensure different dyes only appeared on certain parts of the cloth. After two years of experimentation, he succeeded in creating a small batik pointillist self-portrait.

The batik technique is evocative of Malaysian culture. Teng's works glow with the brilliance of the equatorial sun and show his empathetic response to the Malaysian way of life. Themes on physical labour and mother and child are often seen in Teng's vast output. While the subject of mother and child often carries religious connotations in Western art, Teng's portrayal in Lot 1278 shows a Malay mother's love for her child sealed in a tender embrace.

Teng possibly created this work in the mid 1980s when he started to combine traditional batik technique and direct painting on cloth with a brush. He termed this technique 'mixed media' which gave him freer expression and a softer quality to his paintings, as exemplified by Lot 1278. This is different from classical batik paintings characterised by thick contours and crackling effects.

Teng's colourful images of the Malaysian countryside have received international acclaim and his works are kept by major galleries, museums and private collectors around the world. He also greatly influenced later generations of batik artists including his sons, Siew Teng (Lot 1277), Seow Keng (Lot 1216) and Siew Kek.