Cheong Soo Pieng: Layer by Layer presents a unique insight into the artist’s innovative use of materials in painting through examples from the 1940s to 1980s. This exhibition catalogue features artwork plates presented alongside technical photographs that illuminate Cheong’s artistic process and choice of materials. Accompanied by essays that explore the intersections between conservation science and art historical research, it poses the question: what makes a painting?
Exploring Shell's remarkable advertising archive, which includes an extensive poster collection, as well as film, cartoon graphics and guidebooks, this book is the first to present a comprehensive overview of the company's artistic heritage. The key contributions made by some major artists and designers including Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland, Ben Nicholson and Edward McKnight Kauffer are highlighted and beautifully reproduced from original archive material, and broader questions are explored, such as Shell's position within contemporary debates regarding the aesthetics of 'Commercial Art'. By delving into the ways in which Shell's publicity was conceived, commissioned and disseminated in the 20th century, the authors examine the historical and social contexts of Shell?s advertising and assess the work's broader cultural significance in shaping an era defined by travel, prosperity and mass democracy.
Soul of Ink: Lim Tze Peng at 100 pays tribute to the remarkable achievement of artistic renaissance at 100. It traces the lean beginnings of Lim Tze Peng's early years, relives the times of controversy over the artist's innovations in Chinese calligraphy, and celebrates his breakthroughs. Throughout the book, attention is paid to Lim Tze Peng the man, the foundation of everything that is admirable about Lim Tze Peng the artist. It looks at the man behind the art, and how art has given life to him and his family.Farmer, teacher, principal, and artist, Lim Tze Peng counts Lee Man Fong, Cheong Soo Pieng, and Liu Kang as his mentors. These men, like the others from the pioneering generation of Nanyang artists, are no longer around. Lim Tze Peng remains standing, a witness to and player in Singapore's art history since the 1940s.His life started late; everything got going only after the ripe old age of 80. A Cultural Medallion winner at 82 and a Meritorious Service recipient at 95, Lim Tze Peng is used to the twists and turns of life and has been trained by experience to endure the vagaries of fate. You could describe his art as the art of perseverance. The works he produces these days need to be seen to be believed. Bigger, bolder, and boasting far more colour than ever before, his art is as invigorating as that of a young man, whilst embodying the soul of a sage.At the heart of this book is the word 'soul'. What pushes a man at the age of 100 to continue breaking new ground in his life's work? How has he been able to surprise not just the art community but himself?This is Woon Tai Ho's second book on a Singaporean artist. His first, To Paint a Smile, is about the artist Tan Swie Hian.
Shortlisted for Hedwig Anuar Children’s Book Award 2018 Ming is a very creative boy who loves to make things and he would love the chance to create his fanciful inventions. He didn’t have the money to buy the things to make his inventions, and was wondering what to do when the sound of the Karung Guni man’s car horn beeped. This gave Ming an idea: he would become Karung Guni boy and make things out of things he collected instead. So he went door-to-door to his neighbours asking for things they no longer wanted. Soon he had enough to build his machine. The grateful neighbours came to the unveiling of Ming’s invention and were delighted to see that he had built a machine that would serve as a helper for them, whenever they needed an extra hand.
Liu Kang (1911-2004) and Ho Ho Ying (1936-) are important painters in Singapore's art history. But along with their creative practices, they also played key roles as art writers and critics. These selected writings, mostly drawn from the Chinese-language press, document important phases in Singapore's art history.
What is modernism in Southeast Asia? What is modern art, as embodied in the paintings of Southeast Asia? These questions and more are answered in Reframing Modernism: Painting from Southeast Asia, Europe and Beyond, published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name. Featuring 217 works, in full colour, by 51 Southeast Asian and European artists, from the Centre Pompidou and National Gallery Singapore, as well as other Southeast Asian collections in the region and beyond, this catalogue tells the compelling story of modernism as it developed across continents, and reveals artists' powerful, and sometimes surprising, responses to modernity.
