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.A plein air artist, Lim devoted more time to painting after his retirement in 1966. ‘View from Penang Hill’, painted on one of his overseas painting trips to Malaysia, presents a panoramic view from Penang Hill. There is another painting with the same title and a similar view by Lim in the SAM collection. However, the focus of this piece is on the lowland in the foreground, with the mountain in the far distance.
