Sun Yee 沈雁 (Singaporean, 1919–2010) was a prominent painter and art educator who played an important role in Singapore’s early modern art scene. Born in Zhejiang, China, she studied at the Xinhua Art Academy in Shanghai and Nihon University in Tokyo before travelling to Paris, where she studied under French modernist Fernand Léger and at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.
Settling in Singapore in 1954, Sun worked across Chinese ink and oil painting, often depicting local landscapes, tropical flowers, and everyday life. Her practice brought together Chinese and Western artistic traditions, with her early oil paintings particularly noted for their vivid, Fauvist-influenced use of colour. She was also the first and only principal of the Singapore Academy of Arts, serving in the role for nearly three decades. Sun exhibited extensively in Singapore and internationally, including in Paris, Brussels, Geneva, Berlin, New York, and São Paulo.
