About The Art Gallery

The Art Gallery, Penang was started by Dr Tan Chee Khuan (now Dato’) and his wife, Siau Bian in 1989. The gallery was very active  with about 12 – 15 exhibitions a year. Later it branched out into book publishing and produced  more than 30 books on Malaysian art and artists. The gallery was especially well known for the promotion and collection of pioneer artists of Malaysia, such as Yong Mun Sen, Kuo Ju Ping, Khaw Sia, Dato’ Chuah Thean Teng  and Dato’ Mohd Hoessein Enas. At the same time, it also promoted artists from Penang and eventually the whole of Malaysia, and later S.E. Asia.

Unfortunately, Siau Bian  became sick with acute myeloid leukemia in 2000 and succumbed to her illness in November 2001. Her daughter, Tan Ee Lene who was studying pharmacy at University of Nottingham, UK  at that time was recalled home to help look after her mother and manage the gallery at the same time. The gallery was finally closed in August 2002 to allow Ee Lene to return to UK where she decided to study for her Bachelor of Psychology instead.

In April 2009, The Art Gallery was approached by Amatir Resources Sdn Bhd, owner of Art Salon @ Seni, located at Mont Kiara, Kuala Lumpur to manage the gallery. Ee Lene agreed to take up the challenge to run the gallery. It is great that 20 years after her parents started their gallery in Penang, Ee Lene with the help of her husband, Andrew and brother, Chien Li are now continuing The Art Gallery tradition at Kuala Lumpur. This new generation of gallerists will use this opportunity to showcase their unique coterie of artists and collection of artworks, not usually seen in Kuala Lumpur.

The first exhibition will be a memorial exhibition of Peter Harris who passed away on 14 March 2009. Peter Harris was born in Bristol, England in 1923. He came to Malaya in 1951 after being appointed the art superintendent in the Federation of Malaya. The Wednesday Art Group counted amongst its members Patrick Ng Kah Onn (1932 – 1989), Syed Ahmad Jamal (now Datuk, born in 1929),  Dzulkifli Buyong (1948 – 2004), Cheong Lai Tong (born in 1932), Jolly Koh (now Dr, born in 1941), who are all now regarded as important Malaysian artists. Most of the early members received no formal art training, but Peter encouraged their passion and interest in art.

Peter travelled all over the Federation to impart his knowledge, but his favourite stopover was Penang, which was the art centre of Malaya then (before Kuala Lumpur took over in the 60s). He enjoyed visiting Mun Sen and Chuah Thean Teng (1912 -2008) , popularly known as Teng. Peter praised Mun Sen’s success with using bold brushstrokes. He envisaged that Mun Sen had a long distinguished career ahead of him if he continued to forge ahead in international art exposure, since he was gifted with his natural art talents, his individual style and a keen sense of discovery, creativity and insight in his art compositions. His prediction turned out to be very accurate as many artists, including Dato’ Tay Hooi Keat (1910 -1989) Tan Choon Ghee (born in 1930) and Chang Fee Ming (born in 1959), credited their inspiration to Mun Sen.

On Teng, he wrote “I admire greatly too, the works of Chuah Thean Teng in Penang. He is consciously making a true use of Malay batik methods, combining them with a very personal style of drawing, developing from the batik tjanting and with the brilliant pure colours of dyes”.

He decided to leave Malaya in 1960 after having groomed some successors. Before he left, he was honoured by the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur to be the first artist to hold a Retrospective exhibition at the gallery. On the way home, he drifted through Penang, and landed in Thailand. Then he went to Cambodia, Vietnam, and finally boarded a ship to Hong Kong, Japan, Hawaii, America and back to England.

He was happily surprised in 1962 to receive an offer to oversee art education in Sabah and witnessed the formation of Malaysia in 1963. He left Sabah in 1967, not realising that he had become an icon in the history of Malaysian.  In 1996, Galeriwan (now defunct) hosted an exhibition for the Wednesday Art Group – Then and Now exhibition which included paintings by the group, including Peter Harris.  Apparently, Yeoh Jin Leng (born in 1929, not a member of WAG) in his course of research of art movements in Malaysia had found his address and contacted him and managed to persuade the National Art Gallery to fly him to take part in the exhibition.

In early 2000, Jin Leng contacted Dr Tan to host a solo exhibition for Peter in Penang. He agreed and suggested producing a catalogue which will include a semi-autograph of his early days and life in Malaysia. Peter agreed readily and sent  a nice write-up with lots of photographs. His exhibition was held at The Art Gallery, Penang in January 2001 together with the publication of a 48 page book entitled Peter Harris – Founder of the Wednesday Art Group. He had a good stay in Penang and was taken sight-seeing by Dr Tan and Ee Lene. He presented Ee Lene  with a pastel sketch of her before returning to UK.

The paintings featured in this memorial exhibition from June to August 2009 include many of his studies of people that he drew while he was stationed in Malaya. However,  also included are two paintings he did in Cambodia as well as some later works which he did in UK, and some which were done after his last visit to Malaysia in 2001.  The exhibition will be officiated by Mr Lai Voon Hon, President /C.E.O. of Ireka Development  Management Sdn Bhd on Saturday, 20th June 2009 at 4pm. The exhibition runs from 10 June to 28 August, 10am to 6pm (closed on public holidays).

The next exhibition scheduled in September 2009 is A Tribute to Lee Joo For, artist-printmaker-playwright who will be celebrating his 80th birthday in August.