LOT 64
KHALIL IBRAHIM
B. Kelantan, 1934 – 2018
Seated East Coast Ladies, 1990’s
Study from a Khalil Ibrahim Sketchbook which comes with the hard front cover of the sketchbook
Watercolour on paper
28 x 20 cm
Provenance Private Collection, Kuala Lumpur
RM 900 – RM 2,500
Khalil Ibrahim is indeed a legendary icon in the Malaysian art scene. Born in 1934 in Kubang Krian, Kelantan, he is by far one of the few Malaysians who received a state scholarship to attend art training at the prestigious Central St Martins School of Art and Design in London. Throughout his long career, which spans over 50 years, Khalil has held a number of solo and group exhibitions in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Switzerland. His masterful skills in drawing, watercolour and acrylic, are in styles that move from the almost real to the almost abstract. Khalil’s preference for the human figure has led him to create iconic images of men and women in the East Coast Malay fishing villages against stark backgrounds of blues and greens and watercolour landscape of villages. Over the length of his artistic career, Khalil’s abstraction was overshadowed by his other, more naturalistic works when he produced paintings such as Pembicaraan III in 2002, Velocity IV in 2003, Tangtu and Pura in 2003, Padang Galak and Pabean in 2004 and the intriguing ink on paper set of images from Bali, Indonesia, The Spirit of the East Coast and Sanur.