Often called the "Father of Malaysian Painting", Yong Mun Sen was a fourth-generation Malayan who grew up in Kuching but ended his days in Penang. His many paintings are found in veritable collections throughout the world. Despite his attempts at discouraging his many children to stay away from artistic endeavours, one of his sons, Cheng Wah, became a famous painter in his own right. And it looks like the family talent will move on to another generation.

THE LEGEND OF Yong Mun Sen is one of the most gripping of an art of a people and time in the formative years of Malaya and after.

Painting pioneer (oil, watercolours, Chinese brush, batik, pen and charcoal), sculptor (plaster of Paris, wood-carving), art activist (forming of societies), studio photographer and calligrapher; no wonder Mun Sen is popularly dubbed the "Father of Malaysian Painting:' The ups and downs of his life and art are reminiscent of that of Vincent Van Gogh, the unofficial patron saint of the suffering impecunious artist.

A fourth-generation Malayan born as Yen Lang (he changed his name to Mun Sen in 1922) in Kuching, Sarawak, and educated in China before returning to work in Kuching, then Singapore and Penang, he set the template of the carefree, halcyon days of palm-fringed kampongs, rubber estates and tin mines and also an interesting vignette of ordinary people at work and play.

Much has been written and said about him but strangely, none from the true heir in spirit and substance, his son Cheng Wah (born 1943).

There is one other artist son, Kheng Wah (born 1945), but Cheng Wah, who bears striking resemblance to his father, is closest to matching Mun Sen's great records, and in many ways, his life and art also paralleled his father's, but in different ways.

Mun Sen forbade his 11 children from taking after him, but as Cheng Wah is wont to point out, “It's in the genes.”