Cheong Soo Pieng, born in Xiamen (Amoy), China in 1914, was accomplished in ink painting having received training in art at Xiamen Academy of Art and Xinhua Academy of Fine Arts in Shanghai. A year after his arrival in Singapore in 1946, he started lecturing at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and stayed on till 1961. However it was a trip taken with fellow artists Chen Chong Swee, Chen Wen Hsi and Liu Kang in 1952 to Bali to seek inspiration and seek fresh subject matter that sealed his standing as a pivotal figure in Singapore’s modern art development. He was part of a group of artists that attempted to articulate a style identifiable and pertinent to post-war Singapore, then known collectively with Malaysia, as Malaya. This style, later crystallized as the Nanyang style, provided a foundation upon which future generations of artists learned and expanded on. A key element of the Nanyang style is the synthesis of Chinese pictorial elements and the diverse formalistic qualities from the School of Paris. In 1962, the Singapore government awarded Cheong with the Meritorious Service Medal. He passed away in 1983.‘Untitled (House with Dense Foliage Behind)’ is one of the countless sketches accumulated from 1949 to 1979; inclusive of those drawn during his sojourns in Southeast Asia, China and Europe. Drawn after his trip to Europe which exposed him to abstraction, (House with Dense Foliage Behind) is regarded as Soo Pieng’s critical transformation – from a realist view of the landscape to an expressive rendition.
