Nauti: All Things Naughty And Nautical
For our third anniversary, Art Again presents Nauti: All Things Naughty and Nautical,
where two of the most enduring subjects in Singapore's art history finally share a room.
Read more about the exhibition below.
80 works from private collections for sale
Artwork list available soon.
Hours
22 - 30 August 2026
11AM - 7PM daily
Address
Supper House
37 Keppel Road, #04-02
Singapore 089064
Nauti begins with a pattern we noticed across three years of running Art Again.
Among the works that land on the marketplace, two subjects keep reappearing: the nautical, in bumboats, rivers and quays, and the nude, in figure studies, bathers and figure work. In the homes of collectors, they sit very differently. The first hangs where everyone gathers; the second, when there is one, lives somewhere quieter. Equally prolific across their period, yet unequally treated, shown, and collected. Two subjects, from the same period, that almost never meet.
Nauti brings them into the same room for the first time. Marking Art Again's third anniversary and our largest exhibition to date, it gathers over 80 works from 16 private collections, drawn from the second half of the twentieth century in Singapore, a period when artists here were working under shifting expectations of what art was for.
THE NAUTICAL
In the decades after independence, art in Singapore carried a public role. It was widely understood to serve the work of nation-building, contributing to a shared sense of identity and cohesion. The state did not dictate what artists painted, but certain subjects flourished while others did not. The Singapore River was among the most prevalent subjects of the period.
Working, multiracial and developing, the River offered the picture the young nation wanted of itself. These scenes moved into tourism imagery, into prizes, and into the National Collection. As the working waterfront was cleared from the late 1970s, its disappearance only sharpened the urgency to record it.The result is a subject painted often, by many hands, across many decades: bumboats along the quays, shophouses at the water's edge, the labour of a working port. In Nauti, the nautical runs through the work of several artists in the show. Lim Tze Peng documented the river in ink across decades, before much of it was gone. Some of the most significant Nanyang artists painted these scenes too: Chua Ek Kay brought a Chinese ink sensibility to Singapore's streets and waterways, and Tay Bak Koi rendered riverine and kampong scenes in a soft, atmospheric palette. Lin Hsin Hsin approached the subject differently, bringing abstraction into the mix.
These artists captured these scenes in their own way, ebbing a longing for the parts of the country that were changing so rapidly. Today, the River is among the most commonly found subjects, in museums and collectors' homes alike.
THE NAUGHTY
Alongside these civic and place-making images, artists continued to study and depict the unclothed body, in figure work, life drawing, and studies that engaged sensuality and desire as much as form. This subject was held to a different standard. Models were difficult to find, exhibitions were debated, and public display was repeatedly negotiated. The nude sat awkwardly against the priorities of the period.Artists pursued it anyway. It was essential to their classical training, and to something that exceeded it: the body, sensuality, the charge of looking. Often the work was done at a remove: in travel, in depictions of Bali and the region, where an ethnographic framing made the subject more permissible. These works entered homes more privately than they entered public view.
In Nauti, the nude appears through the work of several artists. Teng Nee Cheong made richly decorative, sensuous compositions drawn from tropical and Balinese imagery. Cheong Soo Pieng, a foundational figure of the Nanyang style, worked the figure into his broader modernist language. The commitment to the figure was formalised in 1990 with the founding of Group 90, whose members treated life drawing as a serious discipline; among them was the treasured Ng Eng Teng, who brought the same study of the body across into three dimensions in sculpture.
What was kept at a remove then is brought into full view at Nauti, much of it shown publicly for the first time.
For decades, these two subjects rarely met in public view. Drawn from private hands, the rarely shown works of Nauti brings the works in conversation with each other.
Seen together, they reveal a calibration: between what artists were expected to paint and what they kept returning to, between the subjects a nation gathered around and the ones it kept at a distance, between what we have inherited as familiar and what still carries a charge.
Anthony Poon
Chua Ek Kay
Sarkasi Said
Wong Keen
Chen Cheng Mei
Teng Nee Cheong
Artworks by: Cheong Soo Pieng · Lim Tze Peng · Chua Ek Kay · Anthony Poon · Ng Eng Teng · Lai Kui Fang · Tay Bak Koi · Chen Cheng Mei · Lin Hsin Hsin · Teng Nee Cheong · Sarkasi Said · Khoo Sui Hoe · Wong Keen · Low Puay Hua
· Henri Chen · Teng Jee Hum · And More.
Visit Nauti between 22 August - 30 August 2026 at Supper House.
Opening hours 11AM - 7PM.
Tell us you're coming.
Come see what a nation historically gathered around, and what it kept quiet.
[1] Terence Chong, "The State and the New Society: The Role of the Arts in Singapore Nation-building." Chong notes that concerted government support for the visual arts began in the late-1960s, directed at producing a collective sense of Singaporeanness. Parliamentary Secretary Ong Soo Chuan stated that art exhibitions should "contribute positively to inter-racial understanding, harmony and hence national unity"; Lee Khoon Choy declared in 1966 that "the days of Art for Art's sake are over." See also Lily Kong, "Cultural Policy in Singapore: Negotiating Economic and Socio-Cultural Agendas," Geoforum 31, no. 4 (2000): 409–424, on the broader cultural policy framework of the period.
Verification status: Chong's paper is the source you supplied. Full bibliographic details (journal, year, pages) still need confirmation from the PDF. Kong's paper is verified as published in Geoforum 31 (2000), pages 409-424, but the full paper is paywalled at ScienceDirect; I am working from the abstract and citation index.
[2] On the parallel discouragement of competing registers, particularly the "yellow culture" influences associated with Western decadence and individualism, see Cheng Tju Lim, "The Anti-Yellow Culture Campaign in Singapore, 1953–1979," in The State and the Arts in Singapore: Policies and Institutions, ed. Terence Chong (Singapore: World Scientific, 2018). The campaign provides structural context for both halves of this show: what was encouraged in the visual record, and what was made to feel out of place in it.
Verification status: The volume (The State and the Arts in Singapore, ed. Chong, World Scientific 2018) is verified as a real publication. The specific chapter by Cheng Tju Lim is referenced in your research notes but I have not independently verified the chapter exists with that exact title in that volume. Page range required for proper citation. The World Scientific catalogue would confirm.
[3] On the state-led tourism agenda's encouragement of legibly local imagery, including the 1970 "Instant Asia" programme and "Art for Everyone" exhibitions at community centres and the Singapore Conference Hall, see Chong, "The State and the New Society." On the Cultural Medallion (established 1979 by the Ministry of Culture) and its consistent recognition of artists working in Nanyang and place-based traditions, see public records of recipients; Lim Tze Peng, who painted the Singapore River across decades, was awarded the Medallion in 2003. On the broader symbolic construction of the Singapore River through state-led image-making, see T. C. Chang and Shirlena Huang, "Recreating Place, Replacing Memory: Creative Destruction at the Singapore River," Asia Pacific Viewpoint 46, no. 3 (2005): 267–280.
Verification status: "Instant Asia" 1970 and "Art for Everyone" exhibitions are referenced in your research notes drawing from Chong. I have not independently verified these from primary documents. The Cultural Medallion (1979) and Lim Tze Peng (2003) are verified through public record. Chang and Huang's paper is verified as published in Asia Pacific Viewpoint 46, no. 3 (2005), pages 267-280, but full paper is paywalled at Wiley; I am working from the abstract and citation index.
[4] On waterfront redevelopment at the Singapore River from 1977 to 1983, the displacement of bumboat operators and quayside workers, and the resulting urgency artists felt to document scenes before demolition, see Chang and Huang, "Recreating Place, Replacing Memory," 267–280. Tan Choh Tee's decision in the early 1970s to leave his career to record the disappearing waterfront is documented; Lim Tze Peng's ink works of the river date from the same period.
Verification status: Dates (1977-1983) verified through multiple sources on Singapore history. Tan Choh Tee and Lim Tze Peng documentation comes from your research notes; I have not independently verified the specific biographical details.
[5] The YMCA banned nude paintings from exhibition in November 1952. See Yvonne Low, "In Search of the Uncontroversial Nude: Liu Kang's Modernist Pursuit in Nanyang," World Art 14, no. 2 (2024): 181–208.
Verification status: Low's paper is verified as published in World Art 14, no. 2 (2024), pages 181-208. Full paper is paywalled at Taylor & Francis; I am working from the abstract and a summary in your research notes. The specific YMCA ban claim is in your research notes attributed to Low. Specific page reference within Low's paper still needed.
[6] Goh Keng Swee, then Minister of Finance, argued in 1967 that art must "discard the crazy, sensual, ridiculous, boisterous and over-materialistic style of the West." Quoted in Chong, "The State and the New Society."
Verification status: The quote is in your research notes attributed to Goh Keng Swee 1967, cited via Chong. I have not independently verified the original source. Page number in Chong needed.
[7] On nude figure drawing as a classical discipline, see the public statements of Group 90, formed in 1990 and including Solamalay Namasivayam, Liu Kang, Earl Lu, Ng Eng Teng, and Brother Joseph McNally. See "Solamalay Namasivayam: Singapore's Unacknowledged Master of the Nude," Plural Art Mag, https://pluralartmag.com/solamalay-namasivayam-singapores-unacknowledged-master-of-the-nude/.
Verification status: The Plural Art Mag URL is real. I have not independently confirmed the article's author or publication date. Group 90's founding year (1990) is in your research notes; I have not verified it. The membership list comes from your notes.
[8] See Liu Kang's own 1953 essay "Trip to Bali," in which he reflected on the artistic and personal significance of the journey. The essay is the source of the title of National Gallery Singapore's 2026 exhibition Passion is Volcanic: Desire in Southeast Asian Art (R18). See Liu Kang, "Trip to Bali" (1953), reprinted in Liu Kang: Essays on Art and Culture, ed. Sara Siew (Singapore: National Gallery Singapore, 2011).
Verification status: The English text of "Trip to Bali" was provided in our conversation, so the essay's existence and content are verified. The book Liu Kang: Essays on Art and Culture, ed. Sara Siew, published by National Gallery Singapore in 2011, is referenced but I have not independently confirmed the exact title and publisher details. Page range within the book required. Passion is Volcanic exhibition at NGS is verified through NGS website (which I accessed earlier in our conversation); the dates (24 April–[end date] 2026, R18 rating) need final confirmation from NGS.
[9] Yvonne Low argues that Liu Kang's 1952 trip to Bali, undertaken with Cheong Soo Pieng, Chen Chong Swee, and Chen Wen Hsi, provided "fertile conditions" for his modernist project because Bali offered access to nude models that mainland China and Singapore did not. Low, "In Search of the Uncontroversial Nude," 181–208.
Verification status: This claim is in your research notes attributed to Low. The phrase "fertile conditions" is in quotes, suggesting it comes from Low's text directly, but I have not verified the exact wording or page number. The four artists' joint trip is well-documented in Singapore art history.
[10] On the ethnographic framing of regional subjects as a strategy for making the nude permissible, see Low's discussion of primitivist positioning in Nanyang art, "In Search of the Uncontroversial Nude," and Dru C. Gladney, "Representing Nationality in China: Refiguring Majority/Minority Identities," Journal of Asian Studies 53, no. 1 (1994): 92–123, on the construction of Han Chinese identity by contrast with depictions of "othered" women.
Verification status: Gladney's paper is verified as published in Journal of Asian Studies 53, no. 1 (1994), pages 92-123. Full paper is paywalled at JSTOR. The specific argument about Han identity construction is consistent with Gladney's well-known scholarly position; I am inferring rather than citing a specific passage. Low's primitivism discussion is documented in your research notes; specific page reference within her paper needed.