Born in 1943 in Indonesia, Tan migrated to Singapore as a child. After graduating from the Nanyang University in Singapore in 1968, he worked at the French Embassy for 24 years before becoming a full-time artist. In 1985, Tan was awarded the Gold Medal of the French Artist Salon and in 1987, the Singapore Cultural Medallion. In 2003, Tan was honoured with the World Economic Forum Crystal Award and Singapore Meritorious Award. In 1993, Tan became the first Singapore artist to have a private museum dedicated to the display of his extensive oeuvre of artistic and literary works. In the painting ‘To Van Gogh’, Tan pays tribute to the Post-Impressionist artist by depicting luminous sunflowers in a green field in the latter’s distinctive hatching technique. This painting also brings together two aspects associated with the Dutch master: sunflowers and landscape painting.
