After the separation: UM in KL

The University of Malaya Art Museum (UMAM) was established in 1955 in Singapore. With Michael Sullivan, the lecturer in Art History as the curator, the role of UMAM then was that of a teaching museum to support the History of Art course. Throughout the years, the collection developed significantly. In 1959, the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur was established and there was a growing demand for two separate autonomous universities. Thus, in 1961, the campus in Kuala Lumpur became the University of Malaya and the one in Singapore became the University of Singapore. When the Bukit Timah campus ceased its operations in 1962, UMAM’s collection was divided equally between the two universities. This paper looks at the establishment of the Museum of Asian Art and the University of Malaya Art Gallery – home to the “other half” of the UMAM collection.