Cheong Soo Pieng was born in Amoy, China in 1917. He studied at the Amoy Art Academy and the Xinhua Academy of Fine Arts in Shanghai from 1933 to 1936. In 1946, Cheong settled in Singapore and taught at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts until 1961. Together with fellow artists Chen Wen Hsi, Chen Chong Swee and Liu Kang, they went to Bali, Indonesia in 1952 in search of new inspiration and subject matter. Cheong had a dominant influence on the development of modern art in Singapore and is regarded as one of Singapore’s pioneer artists. His innovative experimentations towards developing his stylistic oeuvre had a great influence on his students, many of whom later became established artists in the region. For his contributions in art, he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal by the Singapore government in 1962. Cheong passed away in 1983 in Singapore.By the late 1970s, Cheong had developed his distinctive representation of the human figure which is elegant, with elongated limbs; it is represented in ‘Landscape’. A stylistic trait in Cheong’s oeuvre–the compositional grouping of the subject matter near the centre of the work–is seen here. The detailed line work, akin to ‘gongbi’ (meticulous brush technique) demonstrates Cheong’s strong foundation in Chinese ink painting.
