Nanyang Style

The Nanyang style of painting, also known as Nanyang art or the Nanyang school, was a modern art movement and painting tradition initially practised by migrant Chinese painters in Singapore from the late-1940s to 1960s. As immigrant artists taken by the novelty of tropical landscapes, the Nanyang artists' works characteristically depicted Southeast Asian subject matter such as tropical fruit, kampung scenes, and batik fabric while drawing upon a synthesis of Western watercolor and oil painting techniques with Chinese ink traditions. The name of the movement draws from "Nanyang" (Chinese: 南洋; pinyin: nán yáng; lit. 'Southern Ocean'), a sinocentric Chinese term used to refer to Southeast Asia from the geographical perspective of China. Nanyang art is seen as a significant period in Singapore's art history, as it demonstrates some of the early conscious attempts by artists based in Singapore to generate a local art discourse. Art historian Redza Piyadasa would identify Lim Hak Tai as a pioneer of this first generation of Nanyang artists. The most famous of the Nanyang artists further include Liu Kang, Chen Chong Swee, Chen Wen Hsi, Cheong Soo Pieng and Georgette Chen, the first four of whom had received training in traditional Chinese watercolour painting in China. Liu Kang and Chen Chong Swee arrived in Singapore during the 1930s before World War II, while Chen Wen Hsi and Cheong Soo Pieng would arrive in the post-war period.¶

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Nanyang Style”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.¶

Nanyang Style is art movement in 20th-century Singapore, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition.¹¶

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation.¹¶