LOT 54
HOESSEIN ENAS, DATO
B. Indonesia, 1924 – 1995
Morning Mist Series, 1990
Oil on canvas
120 x 90 cm
Private Collection, Selangor
Signed and dated on lower right
RM 100,000 – 150,000
Mohamed Hoessein Enas (1924-1995) came to Malaya from Bogor, Java in 1947. Enas, who was largely self-taught, mastered a European style of realist portraiture, and painted portraits of several Sultans and members of Malaysian royalty. In 1956, he spearheaded Majlis Kesenian Melayu (later, Angkatan Pelukis Semenanjung)This group was dedicated to depicting the Malay ideal of beauty and character. In 1990, five years before his death, Mohammed Hoessein Enas was appointed Royal Portrait Painter to HRH Sultan of Selangor. The Morning Mist series reputedly numbering only five is one of the most compelling of Dato’ Hoessein Enas’s oeuvre. It drew inspiration from his Indonesian idol Basoeki Abdullah (1915 to1993) as much as from Rembrandt van Rijn’s (1606 to 1609), both of whom had worked on the subject of nubile damsels bathing by the waterfall.