Published in conjunction with NUS Museum’s Anniversary Lecture in 2015 by T.K. Sabapathy, a former student of Sullivan, this book deals with the latter’s tenure in the then University of Malaya from 1954-1960, his teaching of history of art, his research and writing on art in Southeast Asia and the establishment of the University of Malaya Art museum. In all these respects, Sullivan inaugurated the academic study of art and its histories in Singapore/Malaya. Transposing the illustrated lecture by Sabapathy into book form, the text features both personal recollections and considerations of Sullivan as educator, curator and writer. 

In 1954, Michael Sullivan was appointed as Lecturer in the History of Art at the University of Malaya. Concurrently, he became also the founding curator of Singapore’s first art museum and teaching collection – the University of Malaya Art Museum, located then at its campus at Bukit Timah. He envisaged the study of the history of art and displays of artefacts in a museum as widening the scope of learning in a university in Singapore and the then Malaya. Today this collection forms the seed of the NUS Museum’s South and Southeast Asian Collection. Though trained primarily as a historian of Chinese art and with little formal education in museology or curating, Sullivan nevertheless in his short time here between 1954 and 1960, helped develop several important coordinates for the museum. 

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