Born in 1923, Lim Tze Peng is largely a self-taught artist. In his oeuvre, ink paintings and calligraphic works feature prominently, although there is a small number of oils, watercolours and drawings. He created a unique style of ink painting using rich brush and tonal details, and this approach is often regarded as a manifestation of the Nanyang Style in the ink medium. Lim, a school principal until his retirement in the early 1980s, was awarded the Cultural Medallion by the Singapore government in 2003.A skilled calligrapher, Lim is also knowledgeable in the Chinese classics, having studied them from an early age. This poem is by Tang dynasty poet Du Fu (712-770), in which he laments Zhuge Liang’s (181-234) missed opportunity at capturing the state of Wu which resulted subsequently in a loss in a power tussle during the Three Kingdoms Period (220-280).
