Born in 1931, Choo Keng Kwang is widely recognized for realistic renditions of landscape, animals and nature in the oil medium. Sympathetic to local working classes, Choo features them in many of his works. Graduating in 1953 from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), he worked as a teacher, eventually returning to NAFA to helm the Art Education Department in 1984. Choo has since held many solo exhibitions and has participated in group art exhibitions in Southeast Asia, Japan, Europe and USA. Since the 1950s, Choo has received many awards for his many contributions to art and education, among which is the Public Service Medal (PBM) in 1976.Although Choo is known for his oil paintings of street scenes, birds and fishes, he is also an important woodcut artist for the prints he produced in the 1950s .During the 1950s to early 1960s, Choo was unhappy with the colonial government’s indifference towards the plight of the poor and created prints to raise society’s awareness to the situation. The prints portray the local working class archetypes such as hawkers, labourers and tradesmen.
