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.Primarily a plein air artist, Lim transforms the visual world into romantic representations on paper. With quick brush strokes, Lim captures the tonal nuances, presenting a lyrical effect of the bright tropical sunlight in ‘Fort Canning Gate’. The golden period of Lim’s artistic oeuvre is considered to be the years between 1955 and 1965.
