Lim Cheng hoe 林清河

Lim Cheng Hoe is one of Singapore’s first generation key pioneer artists and one of the founders of the Singapore Watercolour Society. Most well known for his watercolour depictions of our local sceneries, Lim was part of an informal gathering of painters called the Sunday Grou. They explored painting the Singapore River, Malay villages and seaside landscapes. In 1969. Lim Cheng Hoe received the National Day Long Service Medal. In 2018, National Gallery Singapore held an exhibition which showcased more than 60 paintings by this important artist.

Biography

Born 1912

Background
1919 Immigrated to Singapore
1932 Graduated from Raffles Institution, Singapore
1968 National Day Long Service Medal, Singapore
1969 Founded Singapore Watercolour Society

Selected Solo Exhibitions
1988 Lim Cheng Hoe Retrospective, Orchard Point, Singapore 
1986 The Lim Cheng Hoe Retrospective, National Museum Art Gallery, Singapore 
1980 One-man exhibition, Chinese Camber of Commerce, Singapore

Selected Group Exhibitions
2002 Installing Memory, Jendela Gallery, Esplanade, Singapore
2000 The Landscape in Southeast Asian Art: Exploring the Themes of Landscapes in
Paintings, Sculptures and Installations, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
1994 Window on Singapore, National Arts Council, China & Hong Kong

He founded the Singapore Watercolour Society in 1969, and can count Ong Kim Seng, Leng Joo Wong and many other prominent local watercolorists as his students. Yet, Lim himself was essentially a self-taught artist. He only received brief formal art tutorship in 1930 - 1932, his final years at Raffles Institution, under Richard Walker, the first Art Inspector in Singapore. Through his personal discipline and passion, Lim played a significant role in the development of watercolour in Singapore, through his depiction of the local landscape in the medium.

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