Born in 1945, Anthony Poon was one of Singapore’s pioneering abstract artists. After graduating from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) in 1964, Poon continued his art studies at Bynam Shaw School of Art in London and Regional College of Art in Bradford. In 1973, Poon won the UOB Painting of the Year Competition and was bestowed the Cultural Medallion in 1991. In 2002, he won the Excellence Prize at the China International City Exhibition and Symposium in Beijing for his 2006 Olympics sculpture. He passed away at the age of 61 in 2006.‘Riverside Village’ is a significant work as it marks the emergence of Poon’s unconventional iconoclastic style and his courage to break away from the formal traditional art forms of his early years. This painting, which depicts a ‘kelong’ (a fishing outpost on stilts), shows Poon’s experimentation with Modern art.
