Born Tan Tiow Phuang (1911-1983) in Singapore, Dr Tan Tsze Chor went to China at age four for his education and returned at 17. A successful businessman known in the region as the ‘pepper king’, he was an avid collector of Chinese art and a philanthropist who donated money and artworks to various institutions, including the University of Malaya (now National University of Singapore) and the Singapore Art Society.Largely self-taught, Tan developed a unique style of combining seal, regular, running and cursive scripts in a piece of calligraphy that can be seen in this work. One of his late works, the writing here is freer and more expressive than those from the earlier period.
