Georgette Chen
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BIBLIOASIA JUL - SEP 2019 VOL. 15 ISSUE 02 FEATURE Georgette Chen: Artist Extraordinaire Sara Siew examines the link between visual art and the written word through the fascinating story of Singaporean artist Georgette Chen. (Above) Georgette Chen (seated rightmost in the first row) at the Horace Mann School, New York, 1923. (1927–33). Her time in the French capital Beginnings and Endings Chen studied in private schools around the world. was perhaps the most significant. The Artists express themselves in a variety of their experiences, thoughts and feelings Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent She received her primary education at the Lycée City of Light was not unfamiliar to Chen; “A good love story is always close ways. Although art is the most obvious through the written and spoken word. van Gogh, for example, wrote 800 or Jules-Ferry in Paris, followed by Horace Mann School having spent part of her childhood there, to one’s heart.”5 of these, some artists also rely on the Some writings, like manifestos and so letters to his younger brother Theo, in New York, the exclusive McTyeire School for Girls in Shanghai, and the Art Students League in New York, she spoke fluent French and was well medium of words as a means of self- declarations, tell us about the ideas laying bare his private anguish and joys, before studying art in Paris. Image reproduced from acquainted with the sights and sounds of Paris augured exciting beginnings for aexpression. From private musings and behind a certain style or about the con- and in the process painted a portrait of Chia, J. (1997). Georgette Chen. Singapore: Singapore Paris. Chen counted the Tuileries Garden Chen not just in art, but also in her per- working notes to published essays and text in which artists worked, while others himself that is arguably as compelling as Art Museum. (Call no.: RSING q759.95957 CHI). and Parc Monceau among her favourite sonal life: it was here where she found interviews, many artists have chronicled strike a deeper, more emotive chord. The his artworks. (Above right) Georgette Chen and her first husband, childhood haunts and, decades later, a love that was to become her most The celebrated Singaporean artist Eugene Chen, whom she married in 1930. Date would still delightfully recall riding on the enduring. In 1927, at the age of 21, she Georgette Chen (1906–93) also wrote of photo unknown. Courtesy of National Gallery Georgette Chen said that France was in a way her home. She knew Brittany, in the northwest of France, best merry-go-round at the park and feeding met Eugene Chen in Paris. The two were extensively. Chen’s achievements as an Singapore. besides Paris, having spent many years of her childhood in St Enogat, a village near the beachside suburb her favourite swans at the Tuileries. introduced by their mutual friend Soong artist are widely recognised: her lively of Dinard. Georgette Chen. Coast of Brittany. c. 1930. Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm. Gift of Lee Foundation. Revisiting Paris in her early 20s, now Ching Ling, more famously known as Collection of National Gallery Singapore. Courtesy of National Heritage Board. oil paintings of the places and people of Growing up, Chen experienced a cos- as a budding artist, further strengthened Madam Sun Yat Sen (Chen’s father was Singapore at a formative time in its history mopolitan and privileged upbringing in Chen’s relationship with the city. While a key funder of Sun Yat Sen’s political have cemented her status as one of the Paris, New York and Shanghai. enrolled at the less structured art schools activities in China). nation’s most important first-generation Chen’s father had encouraged her of the Académie Biloul and Académie Eugene, a political journalist and artists; she was also a respected art interest in art since young, even engaging Colarossi, Chen also carved for herself respected diplomat, had been Sun’s educator for 27 years and a Cultural a private art tutor, Victor Podgorsky, for an education that extended far beyond foreign policy adviser from 1922 to 1924 Medallion recipient. Less well known, her. Father and daughter, in fact, attended the classroom. She travelled around Paris and, following that, the minister for foreign however, is her personal story, one that these lessons together. Chen’s affinity for frequently, seeking subjects to paint affairs of the nationalist government in spans wars and revolutions, triumph and oil as a medium was apparent even then. and relishing “the freedom of painting Wuhan, China. With the collapse of the tragedy, and loves lost and found. She recalled of her childhood: “My whatever you like”.4 nationalist government in 1927, Eugene A Life Less Ordinary father expected me to study Chinese Chen gradually found acclaim, begin- found himself exiled in Europe, his politi- painting, but I had a different idea. I told ning with the acceptance of one of her cal career in limbo. His encounter with “I often sit quietly in the silence him I wanted to study the oil medium, paintings by the Salon d’Automne in 1930, Georgette Chen was, however, to bloom. of the night and wonder at the which would enable me to paint every- an annual exhibition that had by then Despite their vastly different pro- mysterious drama that is life…”1 thing around me, people, food, flowers, transcended its beginnings as an alter- fessions, the two were aligned in their salted ducks, sampans, peasants and native to the official conservative salon mutual love for the arts. Chen recalled: Georgette Chen, who was named Zhang potatoes.”2 On another occasion, she to become an influential, progressive “Well, in the first place he always loved Liying when she was born in October remembered her father “impatiently platform in the Parisian art world. She art, music, literature, French. He was a very 1906, was the fourth daughter of Zhang enumerat[ing] the long list of Chinese also started to exhibit regularly in other good French scholar as well. And he was Jingjiang, a wealthy Chinese merchant. vegetables which could be painted. He salons and participated in two major always ready to pose for me. That always wanted to know why I insisted on painting exhibitions in 1937: Palace of Painting helps an artist. He always told me not to the foreign potato.”3 and Sculpture as part of the Paris World sew because there were many tailors Sara Siew is a writer and editor at the National Gallery Singapore. She is interested in the relation- Chen’s foundation in oil painting Fair, and Les Femmes Artistes d’Europe who could do the work. And if I wanted ship between various forms of art, particularly the was further developed when she studied Exposent (Women Artists in Europe) at to sew, then it was better to take up my intersections of the visual and the literary. art in New York (1926–27) and then Paris the Jeu de Paume museum. easel and paint instead.”6 10 11 BIBLIOASIA JUL - SEP 2019 VOL. 15 ISSUE 02 FEATURE painting or study was successful, or if it she was 55 years old and living alone in Paradise on Earth had to be executed again. These details, Singapore. Much had transpired in the 17 which Chen recorded dispassionately and years since her husband’s death, bringing “So you can see why I am fast faithfully, offer precious insights into the her serendipitously to a Southeast Asian becoming a tropical plant and often hidden and banal aspects of artistic island that was worlds away from the desire nothing more than to spend practice, as well as the hard work and cities she had known: Paris, Shanghai the rest of life painting the vivid dedication behind an artist’s craft. and New York. motifs of this multi-racial paradise Over time, Chen’s writings also bear Following the end of World War II, of perpetual sunshine.”16 silent witness to the progression of her Chen stayed in China until 1947, when career: while early diary entries speak she left for New York. That same year, The simple, satisfied existence in Malaya of these attempts and studies, later she married Dr Ho Yung Chi, Eugene that Chen often spoke of was due to her accounts (which appeared in letters to Chen’s colleague and an old mutual art, which flourished in this land she now family and friends instead) describe the friend of theirs. Together, Chen and Ho called home. From the 1950s to the 70s, pieces she was commissioned to create, lived in New York then Paris, all the while she firmly established herself artistically, her attempts at juggling painting and bearing hopes of eventually returning to creating many of the pain tings she is teaching, and the tedium of preparing China. However, in the absence of better known for today. This would, arguably, not for exhibitions or judging on committees. prospects in China, the couple eventu- have been possible if she had not settled Chen’s blissful life in Paris as a happy ally decided to take up an offer to teach down in Malaya: so closely intertwined was newlywed and an emerging artist was at Han Chiang High School in Penang, her art with its people and places. soon compromised by the outbreak of Malaya, arriving in 1951 to what Chen Chen, in turn, would increasingly the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. described as “a beautiful tropical island identify herself as being a part of this In 1941, while she and Eugene were living which I call my Tahiti”.12 land, a new citizen who set out to learn in Hong Kong, they were detained by the While Chen was immediately the mother tongue Malay, print her own Japanese and placed under house arrest enthralled by this new land and enjoyed batik and adopt the Malay nom de plume before being moved to Shanghai, where her life in Penang immensely, the experi- of Chendana (which refers to fragrant they were interned until 1944.