Yong Mun Sen
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Yong Mun Sen (10 January 1896[1] – 1962) was a Malaysian artist and one of the founder of Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore, then Malaya. Born Yong Yen Lang in Kuching, Sarawak, he changed his name to Yong Mun Sen in 1922.
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Born in Kuching, Sarawak where his father ran a coconut estate, in 1901 Sen went to Dabu County in Meizhou City, Kwangtung (now Guangdong) Province in China for schooling in brush use and calligraphy and returned to Kuching in 1910. Sen always spoke of how seeing a Japanese artist painting with watercolors had made an indelible impression on him.[2]
He is widely known as the Father of Malaysian Painting.[2] Although trained in formal Chinese brush painting and calligraphy in China, as an artist he was drawn to watercolours and later oils.
Sen returned to China in 1914. His paintings during this visit were marked by a grandiose theme. He painted lions and tigers, images that were hugely popular with the warlords of the time. He married Lam Sek Foong in 1916, and returned to Sarawak in 1917.[2]
He settled in Penang in 1922, where he had his own art studios on Penang Road and later Northam Road.
Mun Sen is noted for his watercolour landscape paintings, which incorporate influences from Chinese art resulting in more airy and generalised compositions rather than in more detailed or factual depictions. Since his death in 1962, his works have retained an important and honoured place in Malaysian art.
Two of his children would follow in his footsteps, Yong Cheng Wah and Yong Kheng Wah. Both are well-established artists in their own media.
In 1929, Yong Mun Sen was the vice president of Singapore Society of Chinese Artists (SOCA). [3]
He also proposed to establish a fine arts school, now known as Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA). Through an annual meeting hosted in 1937, the idea was subsequently shelved away due to the lack of funding. Tan See Siang helped with the funding of the institution and thus NAFA was then established in 1938, with Lim Hak Tai becoming NAFA's Founding Principal and Yong Mun Sen becoming one of the founders of the institution alongside his peers of SOCA.[3]
- Yong Mun Sen in Nanyang, comprehensive retrospective exhibition at Ngee Ann Kong Si Galleries 1&2 in 11 February -7 May 2023
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