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.After his retirement in 1966, Lim devoted his efforts to painting and refinement of his skills. View from Penang Hill’ is painted on one of his overseas painting trips to Malaysia. Painted from an elevated position, it unfolds a magnificent panoramic view of two land masses divided by water. Utilising the transparent quality and the wet on wet technique, Lim captures the tranquility of the lowland and a distant hill. There is a second painting with the same title and a similar view in the SAM collection.
