PEASE, RUPERT (1906-1945)

"Malayan Worker, Singapore" (1940)
mixed media
34 x 26.5cm (image)
signed lower right
*private collection, Sydney
 
Pease is a forgotten, tragic English Expat Artist. He was a rubber planter in Malaya during the 1920-40s and was well known for painting local Malay scenes prior & during WWII. Following the Japanese Invasion of Singapore in 1942, as a British subject, Pease was captured by Japanese forces & imprisoned in the infamous Changi Internment Camp. He continued to produce portraits & landscapes whilst in custody, however he died in the camp in 1945. His sister was Madame Dorothy Fera (Feenie) Tajasque, wife of Georges Tajasque, Chef du Cabinet to Marie Antoine Pasquier, Governor General of French Indo China during the period 1928-1934. Dorothy was friends with several well known artists, including important Vietnamese Modernist, Le Pho. A portrait by Pease of the Late Dr John Herbert Bowyer, is represented in the Singapore General Hospital Collection, of which he was administrator from 1941-44; the Adam Park Project Museum, Singapore. Several other portraits and sketches by Pease are in private and public collections both in South East Asia & abroad. A portrait by Edward Charles Chitty, of Rupert Pease (1943), whilst he was in Changi, is in the Imperial War Museum, United Kingdom. This gorgeous mixed media is reminiscent of legendary Dutch-born Balinese artist, Johan Rudolf Bonnet.