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. As a plein air artist, Lim often went around Singapore with fellow artists on painting trips. His landscapes of Malay huts and the Singapore River crowded with boats are now invaluable records of a bygone era. ‘Dragon’ is one such uncommon sight. The prop is used in dragon dances, which are performed to celebrate festivals of the Chinese community. Undoubtedly dragon dances are still held in Singapore today, but the dragon in this painting is unusually large and grand.
