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A Story of Singapore Art

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A Story of Singapore Art artcommune gallery proudly presents A Story of Singapore Art An art feast that captures a uniquely modern Singapore cross-fertilized by decades of East- West sensibility in fine art. A Brief Overview The story of Singapore art could be said to have first taken roots when the island flourished as a colonial port city under the British Empire. In addition to imported labourers from India and China, unrest and destitution brought on by civil conflicts and the great world wars culminated to a significant exodus of Chinese intellectuals (educators, scholars, writers and painters) and businessmen to Singapore in search of better work-life opportunities. By the early-20th century, Singapore (then still part of the Straits Settlements) was already a melting pot of diverse migrant traditions and cultures; the early Singapore art scene was naturally underpinned by these developments. During this period, most schools under the British Colonial system taught watercolour, charcoal and pastel lessons under its main art scheme while the more distinguished Chinese language-based schools such as Chinese High School often taught a combination of Western oil and Chinese ink paintings (in fact, a number of these Chinese art teachers were previously exposed to the Paris School of Art and classical Chinese painting during their art education in China in the 1920s). Furthermore, art societies including United Artists Malaysia as well as the Society of Chinese Artists were in place in as early as the 1930s, and the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) was formally established by Chinese artist-educator Lim Hak Tai in 1938. To paint a simplified picture: the local art production in early Singapore may be broadly characterised into three veins – the traditional Chinese painting, the Nanyang style, and British watercolour style. A composition by one of Singapore’s most influential pioneer watercolourists, Lim Cheng Hoe (1912 – 1979). The artist was known for his appropriation of traditional British watercolour style in his depictions of local landscapes. 1 While the first adhered strictly to the painting and literati traditions in early Chinese culture, the latter two evolved into mainstream modern art styles; the Nanyang style in particular came to dominate the artistic climate in Singapore during the 1950s – 1980s and would continue to exert significant influences today. Among the 2nd-generation artists (usually born between late 1930s – early 1950s) in Singapore, a small handful also managed to travel abroad for art education in the West; common destinations include London, America and Paris. As a result, they were able to actualise their practices in a context dramatically different from the more mainstream styles. All the artists selected for this showcase are among our country’s most significant talents; they consist of varying styles and fortes and are in more than one way shaped by these transforming developments in Singapore history. Pioneer Lineage The Nanyang School was propagated by early Chinese immigrants comprising educators and artists who were schooled in both Chinese and dominant Western art styles before relocating from China. Most eventually taught at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) and their practices posit an amalgam of East-West fine art concepts characterized by a distinct South- east Asian socio-cultural experience. In 1952, 4 pioneer Chinese artists (who were also art teachers in NAFA and Chinese High School) Liu Kang, Chen Wen Hsi, Cheong Soo Pieng and Chen Chong Swee embarked on a landmark painting trip to Bali. Inspired by the unique life and traits of the idyllic tropics, they returned with fresh inspirations and began devising groundbreaking pictorial styles that sparked off what would later be coined by Malayan art historians as the “Nanyang style of art”. This exerted great impact on the future generations of art students who enrolled at NAFA. Cheong Soo Pieng (right) and Chen Wen Hsi (below) were among the immigrant wave of pioneer artist-educators who settled in Singapore in the 1930s; they subsequently evolved a highly stylized pictorial language embodying both Eastern and Western art practices localized in a Southeast Asian context – a trait that blossomed into a “trademark” of Singapore art. 2 Cheong Soo Pieng, Drying Salted Fish, 1978, Chinese ink and watercolour on cloth, 55.5 x 88.5 cm One of Soo Pieng’s most stylised and iconic paintings, Drying Salted Fish, which depicts an idyllic Malayan village market scene is featured alongside Wen Hsi’s famous Chinese ink repertoire of Gibbons on the back of Singapore’s $50 bill. Island stems from a famous semi- abstract series devised by Soo Pieng between 1966 and 1968. Employing a unique and highly accomplished method of thin oil technique, the composition evokes a poetic subtlety reminiscent of a Chinese ink painting and exudes an idyllic tranquillity. Cheong Soo Pieng, Island, 1967, Oil on canvas, 96 x 70 cm 2nd- Generation Artists Many pioneer artists and their students (the latter group usually comprises 2nd-generation Singapore-Chinese artists born between the late 1930s and early 1980s) developed their oeuvres in the Nanyang style and it remained the dominant school of art in Singapore between the 1950s and the 1970s. It is important to note that the 2nd-generation artists were raised in an increasingly urbanized Singapore, hence their art do not stubbornly emulate a distinct Nanyang style crafted by their predecessors at NAFA. There also exist some groups who consciously deviated from that path and carved a markedly different stylistic niche for themselves. To name a few significant groups: the Anglo-educated influenced by British Watercolour Style, the Equator Arts Society which adopted and localized 3 the Social-Realist style in Europe, and those who went abroad for their art education and sought to express their Asian identity within a broader Western world. The 2nd-generation artists in our show may be contextualized within these varying veins: Tan Choh Tee was a graduate from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and was taught by several of the pioneer artists including Cheong Soo Pieng. During his education at NAFA, Choh Tee was deeply influenced by Western Modern Art movements such as Impressionism and Post- Impressionism. His pictorial style is realist-impressionist in general; characterized by solid yet gestural brushwork and a rich, flavourful palette. He remains a persistent plein-air painter when it comes to capturing natural scenery, village and urban landscapes. His oil paintings of still life and nude are also popular among local collectors. Tan Choh Tee, Loyang Malay Kampung, 2010, Tan Choh Tee, Mangosteens, 2010, Oil on canvas, Oil on canvas, 65 x 53 cm 36 x 46 cm Ong Kim Seng followed the British watercolour style (typically characterized by broad brushwork and translucent washes; this was previously proliferated by pioneer artists such as Lim Cheng Hoe who attended the British colonial education system since the 1920s and subsequently pursued the watercolour medium in tandem with the modernisation of Singapore). Kim Seng studied in English schools and in his youth painted with The Sunday Group painters led by Lim Cheng Hoe. Raised in this particular backdrop and through decades of experimentation with the watercolour medium, he developed a charming and lyrical repertoire of watercolour landscapes unrivalled in the local art scene. Kim Seng is a Cultural Medallion Awardee (1990) and winner of 7 awards from the prestigious American Watercolour Society. In addition to local and overseas museums and galleries, his works can be seen on display at several foreign missions and embassies representing Singapore. He also counts Queen Elizabeth II, Mr. Koizumi and Mr. H.E. Kofi Anan among the long list of royalties and diplomats who collect his watercolour landscapes. His Nepal series, in particular, is considered a premium collection on the market. 4 Ong Kim Seng, Nepal, 2013, Ong Kim Seng, River Valley Road, 2014, Watercolour on paper, 53 x 73 cm Watercolour on paper, 36 x 51 cm A Cultural Medallion Award winner in 2003, Lim Tze Peng has been writing and painting for over six decades. Though largely self-taught in art, he has amassed a diverse portfolio that traverses various mediums, and is most known for his nostalgic ink compositions of Old Singapore scenes as well as highly stylized series of Chinese calligraphy. Since mid-2000s, the artist has been developing a groundbreaking body of calligraphic work that pushes the conventional boundaries and re-appropriates the ideographic relations between painting and calligraphy. Rising above the preoccupation with legibility and signification, these modern calligraphic works attest to Tze Peng’s evolving practice and his ability to wield the Chinese brush in an increasingly free and uninhibited manner. Lim Tze Peng, Old Chinatown, 1980s, Chinese ink and colour on paper, 68 x 68 cm 5 This calligraphy is rendered an effect reminiscent of ancient Chinese seal-engraving. The artist quotes the last line from a famous Tang poem, Liangzhou Song: The Yellow River fades way up into the white clouds, A speck of a lone town amidst soaring peaks. The Qiang flute need not blame the willows, For the spring breeze doesn’t cross the Yumen Pass. Lim Tze Peng, Calligraphy (春风不度玉门关 ), 2013, Chinese ink on paper, 100 x 103 cm Wong Keen is among the small handful of 2nd-generation Singapore artists who studied art in the West and since early on deviated from the mainstream style in Singapore. Although as a young boy he took drawing and painting lessons under eminent pioneer artists Liu Kang and Chen Wen Hsi (who were also his family friends and teachers at the Chinese High School), he set his sight further than NAFA and boldly moved to America at 19 years of age after being accepted by the Art Students League in New York in 1961.
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