Oil Paintings

My family collects quite a number of old paintings, and they go all the way back to the 50s! Paintings are a good way of documenting the progress of a society. At the same time, the artiste is able to freeze time there and then, and captures the essence of particular scene or a place.



Here's an oil-on-canvas of the old Singapore river from the late 60s by Koh Siak Yong, painted in 1977. Notice the old bridge at the back? Anyone can identify it?

If you guys have any old paintings or come across any, do share them here. I will continue to update the thread with more paintings over time!

There are a lot of paintings before 1965 drawn by Singapore pioneer artists like Liu Kang, Georgette Chen and Chen Wen Hsi! A lot of their paintings depicts the local scene in Malaya before independence.

Before independence, Singapore was viewed as part of Malaya. Nobody imagined that Singapore could survive by herself! The Malayan identity was very strong amongst Singaporeans so local artists would draw paintings regarding Malaya instead of Singapore. Moreover, many of these first generation Singapore artists travelled to Bali to try to gain some inspiration on how to portray the local scene.

The national museum of Singapore held an exhibition on Singapore art between 1950s to 1970s! Sadly, it closed last weekend.

Hi spacesofthemargins,

I think I know what art exhibition you are talking about. I went to it too! On the last few days of its exhibition.

The exhibition was quite an eye-opener to appreciating Singapore at present from our not so distant past.

The development of art in Singapore back then revolved around geographical context and socio-political conditions.

In terms of geographical contexts, migration was one critical factor which inspired pioneering artists - many of whom settled in Singapore between the years of 1930s and 1950s - capturing a local flavour in their art. They are very much fascinated by the cultures and landmarks of their new environments they immersed themselves in developing a distinct localised style while aiming to nurture a regional consciousness including Malaya and Southeast Asia.

In terms of socio-political conscious, inequality and conflict of the socially conscious artists was what surfaced in the artworks. Artists sought to document the hardship that people were going through and depict the prevailing political climate, which was marked by anti-colonialism, labour unrest and identity politics.