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Lot Essay
This season, Christie's is pleased to offer this remarkably rare ink and colour work on paper by the prolific, China-born, Singaporean artist, Cheong Soo Pieng. Trained in both Chinese ink painting and Western painting conventions at the Xiamen Academy of Fine Arts and at the Xin Hua Academy of Fine Arts in Shanghai before migrating to Singapore in 1946, Cheong's distinct artistic style is a harmonious cohesion of Eastern and Western sensibilities as he presents a pictorial feat of colour and life of the local Southeast Asian community and culture.
Alongside his contemporaries, Chen Chong Swee, Chen Wen Hsi and Liu Kang, Cheong formed one of the pioneering artists of the Nanyang Style, known to have developed during the group's first sojourn to Bali, Indonesia in 1952. Painted that very year, Bali Girl, depicts a local woman squatting in frontof a mountain of colourful fruits meant as a traditional balinese offering to the Gods. Cheong was fascinated by the new vibrant life he saw and eagerly documented his surroundings. In this early work,Chen's foundations in Chinese ink and brush comes through with his treatment of ink on her hair along with the use of outlines and washed colours to delineate his subject. Unlike the conventional Chinese ink paintings, Chen was not conservative with his use of colour and detail in Bali Girl as he carefully illustrates the batik patterns of his figure's Kasen along with the ornamental decorations of the offering bowl, instead reminding us of his studies in Western painting philosophies. In its calming splendor and energy, Bali Girl is an unforgettable and vital piece in Cheong's artistic oeuvre as it represents the beginnings of the artist's foray into a lifelong exploration and development of his unique artistic style, grounded in his love for his new homeland.
Alongside his contemporaries, Chen Chong Swee, Chen Wen Hsi and Liu Kang, Cheong formed one of the pioneering artists of the Nanyang Style, known to have developed during the group's first sojourn to Bali, Indonesia in 1952. Painted that very year, Bali Girl, depicts a local woman squatting in frontof a mountain of colourful fruits meant as a traditional balinese offering to the Gods. Cheong was fascinated by the new vibrant life he saw and eagerly documented his surroundings. In this early work,Chen's foundations in Chinese ink and brush comes through with his treatment of ink on her hair along with the use of outlines and washed colours to delineate his subject. Unlike the conventional Chinese ink paintings, Chen was not conservative with his use of colour and detail in Bali Girl as he carefully illustrates the batik patterns of his figure's Kasen along with the ornamental decorations of the offering bowl, instead reminding us of his studies in Western painting philosophies. In its calming splendor and energy, Bali Girl is an unforgettable and vital piece in Cheong's artistic oeuvre as it represents the beginnings of the artist's foray into a lifelong exploration and development of his unique artistic style, grounded in his love for his new homeland.