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拍品專文
The Noni Wright Collection of Cheong Soo Pieng Artworks
Kampong Scene With Jetty and Figures (Lot 234), River Scene With Boats (Lot 235), and works on paper quartet, Village Scene with Tree and Bicycle; Construction Scene; Kampong Scene; Still Life (Lot 236) are properties from the collection of New Zealand film producer and director Wynona 'Noni' Hope Wright, alongside Making Up (Lot 2, Christie's Asian 20th Century and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, 22 November 2014). Based in Malaya and Singapore, Noni Wright was prolific in the local film and media industry, and through her work at Cathay Organisation, became a close colleague of illustrious art patron and film mogul Dato Loke Wan Tho. The pair perished in the same plane crash on 20 June 1964 in Taiwan, a day after receiving the top award at the Eleventh Asian Film Festival in Taipei for Wright's film Happy Homes.
Dato Loke Wan Tho was known as an avid supporter of Cheong Soo Pieng, and it must surely have been through his influence that Wright was able to amass her choice selection of artworks. Kampong Scene With Jetty and Figures and River Scene With Boats reveal Cheong's elegant synthesis of Western and Eastern traditions, which he applied to depict quintessentially Southeast Asian scenes. Painted in vertical scroll-format, adapted from Cheong's training in classical Chinese art, the works capture the essence of traditional ink and brush landscapes through its chiaroscuro effect, use of spatial contrasts, wispy brushwork to form the trees in the background and firmly blotted ink to execute the riverbanks. Yet Cheong also brings to bear a sense of geometric modernism, particularly in the houses on stilts and the linear diagramming of the jetty.
Village Scene with Tree and Bicycle; Construction Scene; Kampong Scene; Still Life are mixed media drawings which display Cheong's formidable sense of draughtsmanship and the keen acuity with which he was able to form his pictorial foundations. Village Scene with Tree and Bicycle in particular reveals his inclination towards an architectural sense of spatial planning, and incorporation of graphic, modernist elements which was prevalent in Cheong's work during the early 1950s. Still Life forms an interesting contrast for employing a salon-style drawing technique, creating an intimate composition which Cheong extends within close-up portraits such as Making Up, and his other small to mid-format modernist oil works of the early 50s period.
Kampong Scene With Jetty and Figures (Lot 234), River Scene With Boats (Lot 235), and works on paper quartet, Village Scene with Tree and Bicycle; Construction Scene; Kampong Scene; Still Life (Lot 236) are properties from the collection of New Zealand film producer and director Wynona 'Noni' Hope Wright, alongside Making Up (Lot 2, Christie's Asian 20th Century and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, 22 November 2014). Based in Malaya and Singapore, Noni Wright was prolific in the local film and media industry, and through her work at Cathay Organisation, became a close colleague of illustrious art patron and film mogul Dato Loke Wan Tho. The pair perished in the same plane crash on 20 June 1964 in Taiwan, a day after receiving the top award at the Eleventh Asian Film Festival in Taipei for Wright's film Happy Homes.
Dato Loke Wan Tho was known as an avid supporter of Cheong Soo Pieng, and it must surely have been through his influence that Wright was able to amass her choice selection of artworks. Kampong Scene With Jetty and Figures and River Scene With Boats reveal Cheong's elegant synthesis of Western and Eastern traditions, which he applied to depict quintessentially Southeast Asian scenes. Painted in vertical scroll-format, adapted from Cheong's training in classical Chinese art, the works capture the essence of traditional ink and brush landscapes through its chiaroscuro effect, use of spatial contrasts, wispy brushwork to form the trees in the background and firmly blotted ink to execute the riverbanks. Yet Cheong also brings to bear a sense of geometric modernism, particularly in the houses on stilts and the linear diagramming of the jetty.
Village Scene with Tree and Bicycle; Construction Scene; Kampong Scene; Still Life are mixed media drawings which display Cheong's formidable sense of draughtsmanship and the keen acuity with which he was able to form his pictorial foundations. Village Scene with Tree and Bicycle in particular reveals his inclination towards an architectural sense of spatial planning, and incorporation of graphic, modernist elements which was prevalent in Cheong's work during the early 1950s. Still Life forms an interesting contrast for employing a salon-style drawing technique, creating an intimate composition which Cheong extends within close-up portraits such as Making Up, and his other small to mid-format modernist oil works of the early 50s period.