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.Although pastel is Lim’s preferred medium for portraiture, he has completed a number of portraits in watercolour. ‘Portrait of a Girl’, a side profile in monochrome brown, shows Lim’s masterly handling of the watercolour medium where volume and form are described by subtle tonal variations. This is especially evident in the blouse which is suggested by a few faint lines.
