THE PROPERTY OF A CORPORATE COLLECTION
Hoessein Enas is regarded as one of Malaysia's most important pioneer artists. He is especially admired for his works of portraiture and genre painting in oil which were executed in the spirit of naturalism. The two paintings on offer (lots 65 & 66) were commissioned for a corporate collection in Malaysia, and they epitomise the subject-matters for which Hoessein is most renowned.
It is not unusual for private patrons to commission paintings from the artist to make up a comprehensive art collection. The present collection was commissioned by the Malaysian Tobacco Company (MTC) which dates its origins to 1911, when the British-American Tobacco (Straits) Limited established its office in Singapore. Its cigarette manufacturing plant was set up in 1929 in Sungei Besi, Kuala Lumpur - the first such facility in the country. Another pioneering move for the tobacco sector saw the MTC setting up the first acreage of the crop in 1959. Today, the MTC is a public-listed company on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange, with its headquarters and manufacturing operations in Sungei Besi, where it produces and markets some of Malaysia's leading brands of cigarette.
Of special interest in the MTC's collection is lot 66 in this sale, Tobacco leaves weaving, which of course is directly related to the work of the MTC. Not only has Hoessein painted a picture of significance for his patron, but he has also provided a studied illustration in his characteristic realist style of the labour-intensive work in a tobacco factory. This painting may serve as a document on the processes of cigarette manufacture during the 1950s before the availability of more complex machinery. In a naturalistically rendered painting, Hoessein shows the steps of manufacture from the point that the tobacco leaves are sorted to the stage of packing and crating.
DATO MOHD. HOESSIN ENAS (b. Malaysia 1924-1995)
Portrait of a nude
細節
DATO MOHD. HOESSIN ENAS (b. Malaysia 1924-1995)
Portrait of a nude
signed "Hoessin H" (lower right)
oil on canvas
26 x 22 in. (67 x 57 cm.)
Portrait of a nude
signed "Hoessin H" (lower right)
oil on canvas
26 x 22 in. (67 x 57 cm.)