Born in Amoy, China in 1912, Lim Cheng Hoe came to Singapore when he was 7. Primarily a self-taught artist, Lim studied art under Richard Walker, Singapore’s first Art Inspector of Schools, at the Raffles Institution in the early 1930s. Lim was a prominent and significant first generation artist due to his treatment of the local landscape in the watercolour medium and is associated with the Nanyang Style. He was also a founding member of the Singapore Watercolour Society. Lim passed away in 1979 in Singapore.In the mid 1950s, Lim concentrated on portraiture as he felt it would help in his representation of form. He drew portraits of people from all walks of life, in both watercolour and pastel; the latter was Lim’s preferred medium for he felt it could convey skin tones and textures better. ‘Old Woman’ shows a Chinese woman in a traditional Chinese blouse.
