Born in Fuzhou, China, Yeh Chi Wei (1915-1981) is included among a group referred to as Singapore’s “first generation artists”. Graduating from Shanghai’s Xinhua Academy of Fine Arts in 1936, Yeh worked as an art teacher throughout Malaya and Singapore until 1964, while an active member of various art groups. He was especially noted in having started a series of painting trips since 1960 to various Southeast Asian and Asian countries under the Ten Men Group, as well as the Ten Men Art Exhibitions after such trips.Stylistically Yeh is more often associated with his earlier figurative oil paintings, while his later works developed an enigmatic and less formal quality. He also became drawn to objects and subjects of spiritual resonance – explaining that he was fascinated with “reverential stupas and temples...ancient ruins and weathered walls". In view of his stylistic transitioning, it is interesting to compare Yeh’s two untitled and undated paintings of temple scenes (Accession Nos. P-0756 and P-1268). In the former, Yeh has rendered the idyllic scene faithfully and dispassionately. With the latter, he has progressed to a more individualistic style.
