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 to seek out suitable subject matter. ‘Malay House’, a relatively early work, features a Malay hut on low stilts, with an attap roof. This type of house was a common sight in Singapore before urban development in the 1960s razed rural settlements to the ground. Compositionally, the hut dominates, and by its central placement and size, it is at once the focus of the painting. The luminosity of watercolour which is so suitable for depicting the brilliant tropical light is used to great effect especially on the sunlit hut.
