Cheong Soo Pieng, Untitled (After JMW Turner), 1962

Ink on paper
16 x 23 cm (visible), 31 x 39 x 2 cm (framed)
Condition: Very good

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Born in Xiamen, China, Cheong Soo Pieng (Singaporean, 1917–1983) was a trailblazing artist whose innovative approach reshaped traditional Chinese painting. He studied Chinese ink painting at the Xiamen Academy of Fine Arts and expanded his repertoire at the Xin Hua Academy of Fine Arts in Shanghai, where he embraced Western artistic concepts. By the time he migrated to Singapore in 1946, Cheong had mastered both Chinese and Western painting traditions. In Singapore, he found artistic freedom, inspiring him to break traditional boundaries and explore uncharted creative territories - pioneering what is now known as the Nanyang Style.

The works Cheong produced and displayed during his European sojourn in the early 1960s embody a cohesive aesthetic: masterful abstract landscapes infused with calligraphic intensity. Cheong consistently explored the meeting of earth and sky, often framing a rising or setting sun—symbols of cyclical birth and life—within his compositions.

Like other works of this period, Untitled (After JMW Turner) (1962) depicts a landscape composition; with powerful surges of the brush creating a dense black mass to represent the sky and other distant landforms. The dynamic, almost turbulent nature of the centrifugal details creates a powerful force within the work, liken to how the English painter, Turner, executed his paintings. It recalls the essence of Chinese calligraphy, in which the motion and life energy of the painter is imbued into the actual composition through deeply gestural strokes and the rapid laying of paint. A perfect representation of Cheong's endeavours during his European sojourn. 

(Photographed in January 2025)