Published as a record of the NUS Museum Anniversary Lecture by T.K. Sabapathy delivered on 20 April 2015.

Michael Sullivan was appointed Lecturer in the History of Art at the University of Malaya in 1954 and went on to become the founding curator of its art museum and teaching collection, the first of its kind in Singapore and the then Malaya. Today this collection forms the seed of the NUS Museum's South and Southeast Asian Collection. This lecture by T.K. Sabapathy, a former student of Sullivan, deals with the latter's tenure in the then University of Malaya from 1954 t0 1960, his teaching of the 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.

Includes a foreword by Ahmad Mashadi, an introduction by Kwa Chong Guan, an edited and expanded version of the lecture by T.K. Sabapathy, and as an appendix, a reproduction of the first guidebook to the University Malaya Art Museum published in 1959.