Born in 1923, Lim Tze Peng is largely a self-taught artist. In his oeuvre, ink paintings and calligraphic works feature prominently, although there is a small number of oils, watercolours and drawings. He created a unique style of ink painting using rich brush and tonal details, and this approach is often regarded as a manifestation of the Nanyang Style in the ink medium. Lim, a school principal until his retirement in the early 1980s, was awarded the Cultural Medallion by the Singapore government in 2003.Lim is an artist who enjoys painting outdoors as it allows him to react to the surrounding environment. In this charming depiction of a food stall sheltered in the protective canopy of a sturdy tree, Lim captures more than what the eye sees; his paintings often evoke sentiments of nostalgia of a bygone era in his viewers.
