Born in Amoy, China in 1912, Lim Cheng Hoe came to Singapore when he was 7. Primarily a self-taught artist, Lim studied art under Richard Walker, Singapore’s first Art Inspector of Schools, at the Raffles Institution in the early 1930s. Lim was a prominent and significant first generation artist due to his treatment of the local landscape in the watercolour medium and is associated with the Nanyang Style. He was also a founding member of the Singapore Watercolour Society. Lim passed away in 1979 in Singapore. Lim favoured pastel over watercolour as a medium for portraiture as he felt the latter was difficult due to its quick drying nature. As a consequence there are few portraits rendered in this medium. Of these, they are largely executed in the 1950s as Lim’s confidence in handling the watercolour medium grew. This work is one of them.
