Fishing Village

Cheong Soo Pieng (1917-1983) is regarded as a pivotal figure in Singapore'�s modern art development. Born in Xiamen, China, he was part of a group of artists that attempted to articulate a style identifiable and pertinent to post-war Singapore, then known collectively with Malaysia, as Malaya. This style, later crystallized as the Nanyang Style, provided a foundation upon which future generations of artists learned and expanded on. A key element of the Nanyang Style was the synthesis of Chinese pictorial elements and the diverse formalistic qualities from the School of Paris. Cheong was a multi-faceted artist, he experimented with Western art styles and was known to have progressed through several phases in a short span of time: from Post-Impressionism to Cubism to abstraction and semi-abstraction. Although undated, �'Fishing Village'� may have been completed during the 1950s when Cheong was experimenting with oil in impasto effects and Cubism. The painting depicts a cluster of huts.