Chua Mia Tee (b.1931) is an eminent realist painter who studied at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1952. Chua was one of the founding members of the Equator Art Society (EAS) in 1956, and took part in EAS annual exhibitions until its dissolve in 1972. Chua is well known for his realist oil painting. His seminal artworks produced during the 1950s, ‘National Language Class’, ‘Road Construction Worker’ and ‘Epic Poem of Malaya’ remain as treasures within the national art collection. A graduate of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Chua sought to establish his own practice by exploring the idea of the ‘real’, for which the artist drew large inspiration from European classical realism, Russian and Chinese social realist art. ‘Dairy Farm at Potong Pasir’ was painted in 1958 two years before the major urban renewal was set in motion, capturing the vanishing agrarian economy and lifestyle in Singapore then.
