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.In the mid 1950s Lim painted numerous portraits in order to refine his skill in representing form. However he found that painting portraiture in watercolour was difficult due to its quick drying nature. He therefore favoured pastel as he felt lends itself better to the description of skin tones and textures. Consequently there are only a handful of portraits rendered in watercolour and this work is one of them.
