Lot 7: Lim Tze Peng (b. 1921) Fishing Village

Lim Tze Peng (b. 1921)
Fishing Village
circa 1970s

signed with artist's seal
ink and colour on paper

82 by 50 cm.
32 2/8 by 19 5/8 in.
For further information on this lot please visit the website

Provenance
Private Collection, Singapore

Exhibited
Singapore, My Kampong, My Home: Lim Tze Peng , Singapore Management University Gallery, 8 December-18 December 2010.

Literature
Woon Tai Ho, My Kampong My Home: Conversations with Lim Tze Peng, published by Friends of Lim Tze Peng in conjunction with the exhibition My kampong, My Home: Lim Tze Peng at Singapore Management University Gallery, 2010, p.152.

林子平
漁村一九七〇年代作
簽名：林子平 藝術家鈐印水墨設色紙本 鏡框

來源
新加坡私人收藏

展覽
新加坡，「我的甘榜，我的家」，新加坡管理大學畫廊，2010年12月8日至18日

出版
雲大箎，《情繫甘榜》，由林子平之友與「我的甘榜，我的家」展覽聯合出版，新加坡，2010年，第152頁，彩圖

Considered one of Singapore's most revered artists Lim Tze Peng belongs to the second generation of Nanyang School Artists. He is also the last living member of the Ten Men Art Group, which similarly, travelled all over Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s in search of inspiration.

However, the story of Lim Tze Peng, especially as told in his Kampong series, is in many ways the story of early Singapore.'[1]

Both Lot 7 Fishing Village and Lot 8 Harmony, 1973, published in 'My Kampong, My Home', have a distinct theme and singularity. Lim was still living in the village, where he painted en plein air and recorded life in his kampong—traditional Southeast Asian villages or settlements. No scene from this series of his first home in Singapore is repeated, each painting unique to the place and characters who were his family and neighbours.

With Harmony, 1973 the artist captured his neighbours' daily routine of harvesting bananas. This ritual carried much significance as every part of the plant was used; nothing was wasted. The trunk would have been used as pig feed, its fibre to make string and leaves to wrap food long before there was plastic, while its flowers and fruit provided sustenance. To the artist, kampong living represents the humble days when people lived in harmony with each other and nature.

An affectionate scene is depicted in Fishing Village. A Malay family is seen on their veranda in bright sarongs and with busy hands while empty sampans or wooden boats are parked on the left. Kampong Pasir Ris was where Lim was born and where his parents farmed. In English, Pasir Ris means fine sand. The kampong was situated on a stretch of white sandy beach along the northeastern coastline of Singapore which was called 白沙 (White Sands) in Chinese.[2] These villages of yesteryear have since been replaced by government housing projects.

Both works display the quintessential Nanyang trait of mixing Western and Chinese techniques. The influence of the Chinese artist Huang Binhong is evident in Lim's works. Like Huang, he views 'brush-and-ink' (bimo in Chinese) as the core of his ink art. Lim Tze Peng innovates and elevates Chinese traditional brushwork by employing thicker and more expressive, fluid lines and strokes to create the mood and atmosphere of his artwork. Using his profound knowledge of Chinese calligraphy, he skillfully integ... For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website