Frame size: 57.5 x 50.0 x 3.0 cm,
Image size: 48.0 x 40.5 cm
Tay Boon Pin was one of the founding members of the Equator Art Society (EAS). A nationalist and anti-colonialist society that was most active in the 1950s and 1960s, many artists in the group resisted producing idyllic landscape paintings of Singapore, commonplace at the time, and turned to realism as a way of making art more accessible to the wider public, and to call attention to the declining conditions of the working class under British colonial rule. Their paintings often included anonymous everyday workers as heroic symbols of perseverance and strength in the face of hardship. Stylistically, many of the group’s members were influenced by European realist traditions as well as social realist art by Chinese and Russian artists.Portrait of an Indian Worker is representative of Tay Boon Pin’s involvement in the Equator Art Society. It is historically significant in terms of understanding Singapore’s social realist movement, particularly the Equator Art Society during the 1950s and 1960s. Of note, the work was included in the inaugural exhibition of the Equator Art Society in 1958.
