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拍品专文
Within every artist’s oeuvre, there exists a muse. A force that inspires, ignites the flame of creativity, and drives artistic expression and innovation. For Singapore pioneer artist Cheong Soo Pieng, it was found in the places he visited and the people with whom he met. The year 1952 was a seminal one as Cheong and three artists – Chen Chong Swee, Liu Kang, and Chen Wen Hsi – sojourned to Bali in search of a distinctive Southeast Asian visual identity. The result of the trip has been irrevocably associated with the Nanyang (South Seas) School, engendering compositions focused on themes associated with the style such as kampong (village) scenes, riverscapes and pastoral landscapes. For Cheong, it became the catalyst of newfound inspiration which led him to further travels around Southeast Asia, specifically a little-known trip to Sarawak in Borneo, Malaysia, home to the subjects of the present painting. The artist was so taken with Sarawak and the indigenous Dayek tribes there, that he returned to the island again in 1959.
Painted in 1953, a year after Cheong’s return from Bali, Sarawak Sisters is an expansive and unique work of excellent artistic caliber. Most works from this period are indeed in institutions or private collections and are rarely seen in the market. Depicting two tribal women seated serenely side-by-side amidst a textured landscape of pale brown and ochre ground, the painting references the distinctive culture of earlobe stretching practiced by both tribal men and women in Sarawak. The sisters are adorned with heavy metal rings used to stretch the earlobes, extending them down to the shoulders in a fashion usually favoured amongst females. The tradition however, is a now dying one, present in a minority of older natives as the last vestiges of beauty in a bygone past. A rare and early piece from the artist’s extensive repertoire, Sarawak Sisters represents one of Cheong’s earliest depictions of the indigenous people of Southeast Asia, completed in the initial years of his arrival to the region.
his palette to the light and colours of the tropics, using bold colours and patterns executed in oil paints. The overall composition in Sarawak Sisters is a harmonious configuration of line, colour and rhythm, found in the bright vermilion accents decorating the ladies’ delicate headdresses and necklaces, as well as in the complementary tones of red, turquoise and dark violet of their sarongs, embellished with tribal motifs executed in a variety of shapes and forms. Depth in the painting is achieved with the use of shades of brown and yellow to demarcate the back, mid and foreground of the work, a display of Cheong’s mastery of balance in creating a sense of space through the application of colour in flat planes across the composition, which like the sinuous lines that articulate the ladies’ physiognomy, are subjugated to a single rhythm.
The brightly-hued tones, planes of colour and flowing lines of Sarawak Sisters are reminiscent of works by Western artists such as Paul Gauguin, whose quest for an unsullied tropical paradise played muse to a series of works depicting landscapes of primitive simplicity infused with romantic and often fantastical and metaphorical articulations of tribal females inspired by the artist’s travels to Tahiti. Yet, the diversity of expressive brushstrokes and defined black lines in Sarawak Sisters simultaneously suggests influences of Cheong’s early training in traditional Chinese ink painting at the Xiamen Academy of Fine Arts, with his subsequent attendance at the Xin Hua Academy of Fine Arts in Shanghai exposing the artist to Western artistic styles and mediums which he skillfully incorporates into his oeuvre.
Importantly, Cheong’s artistic vision and compositions differed from that of Gauguin’s, in that they were not works of pure fantasy, but rather an exalted idealisation of what the artist sincerely believed to be the means through which to express the awe he continued to feel towards the vitality of rural Southeast Asian culture. Much like how the elegant portraits of Amedeo Modigliani—especially that of his muse and wife Jeanne explore an idealized aspect of humanity as an image of internal and external likeness, so Sarawak Sisters embodies the theme of camaraderie and companionship among indigenous folk through the dominance of female figures in Cheong’s works.
Cheong’s depiction of the female figure is paramount in his pictures and grew to be one of the most enduring and imageries of Southeast Asian femininity, with the slender and elongated limbs of the women in Sarawak Sisters drawn from the performing cultural traditions of wayang kulit (shadow puppetry)— a similar style to the trademark figures of Modigliani—and their heavy doe-eyed gaze an iconic symbol of poise and mystery. Cheong developed his figures intermittently, oscillating between more naturalist depictions and greater stylisation. The artist’s early works in the 1950s such as Sarawak Sisters were instrumental precursors of his later compositions in the 60s and 70s, whose stylised female figures reached a maturity of execution with their soft angular lines, abbreviated facial features and exaggerated limbs and torso which made for sensuous and visually appealing compositions.
Indeed, Cheong is widely known as one of the forefathers and key proponents of the Nanyang art style, which marries Western oil painting techniques with influences of Chinese ink and singularly Southeast Asian themes and subjects. In beholding a rare and early work like Sarawak Sisters, one observes its significance as an artistic achievement that is evident of Cheong’s creative transformation and experimentation over the years, paving the way for the further development of his prolific career and artistic repertoire. The painting’s strong tropical colours and acute appreciation for the cultural markers that identify the ladies as Sarawakian, bear evidence of the keenness of the artist to depict the cultures, traditions and landscapes he observed in the region, and is without doubt, a strong museum-quality composition that shall enrich and embolden any collection of Nanyang art.
Painted in 1953, a year after Cheong’s return from Bali, Sarawak Sisters is an expansive and unique work of excellent artistic caliber. Most works from this period are indeed in institutions or private collections and are rarely seen in the market. Depicting two tribal women seated serenely side-by-side amidst a textured landscape of pale brown and ochre ground, the painting references the distinctive culture of earlobe stretching practiced by both tribal men and women in Sarawak. The sisters are adorned with heavy metal rings used to stretch the earlobes, extending them down to the shoulders in a fashion usually favoured amongst females. The tradition however, is a now dying one, present in a minority of older natives as the last vestiges of beauty in a bygone past. A rare and early piece from the artist’s extensive repertoire, Sarawak Sisters represents one of Cheong’s earliest depictions of the indigenous people of Southeast Asia, completed in the initial years of his arrival to the region.
his palette to the light and colours of the tropics, using bold colours and patterns executed in oil paints. The overall composition in Sarawak Sisters is a harmonious configuration of line, colour and rhythm, found in the bright vermilion accents decorating the ladies’ delicate headdresses and necklaces, as well as in the complementary tones of red, turquoise and dark violet of their sarongs, embellished with tribal motifs executed in a variety of shapes and forms. Depth in the painting is achieved with the use of shades of brown and yellow to demarcate the back, mid and foreground of the work, a display of Cheong’s mastery of balance in creating a sense of space through the application of colour in flat planes across the composition, which like the sinuous lines that articulate the ladies’ physiognomy, are subjugated to a single rhythm.
The brightly-hued tones, planes of colour and flowing lines of Sarawak Sisters are reminiscent of works by Western artists such as Paul Gauguin, whose quest for an unsullied tropical paradise played muse to a series of works depicting landscapes of primitive simplicity infused with romantic and often fantastical and metaphorical articulations of tribal females inspired by the artist’s travels to Tahiti. Yet, the diversity of expressive brushstrokes and defined black lines in Sarawak Sisters simultaneously suggests influences of Cheong’s early training in traditional Chinese ink painting at the Xiamen Academy of Fine Arts, with his subsequent attendance at the Xin Hua Academy of Fine Arts in Shanghai exposing the artist to Western artistic styles and mediums which he skillfully incorporates into his oeuvre.
Importantly, Cheong’s artistic vision and compositions differed from that of Gauguin’s, in that they were not works of pure fantasy, but rather an exalted idealisation of what the artist sincerely believed to be the means through which to express the awe he continued to feel towards the vitality of rural Southeast Asian culture. Much like how the elegant portraits of Amedeo Modigliani—especially that of his muse and wife Jeanne explore an idealized aspect of humanity as an image of internal and external likeness, so Sarawak Sisters embodies the theme of camaraderie and companionship among indigenous folk through the dominance of female figures in Cheong’s works.
Cheong’s depiction of the female figure is paramount in his pictures and grew to be one of the most enduring and imageries of Southeast Asian femininity, with the slender and elongated limbs of the women in Sarawak Sisters drawn from the performing cultural traditions of wayang kulit (shadow puppetry)— a similar style to the trademark figures of Modigliani—and their heavy doe-eyed gaze an iconic symbol of poise and mystery. Cheong developed his figures intermittently, oscillating between more naturalist depictions and greater stylisation. The artist’s early works in the 1950s such as Sarawak Sisters were instrumental precursors of his later compositions in the 60s and 70s, whose stylised female figures reached a maturity of execution with their soft angular lines, abbreviated facial features and exaggerated limbs and torso which made for sensuous and visually appealing compositions.
Indeed, Cheong is widely known as one of the forefathers and key proponents of the Nanyang art style, which marries Western oil painting techniques with influences of Chinese ink and singularly Southeast Asian themes and subjects. In beholding a rare and early work like Sarawak Sisters, one observes its significance as an artistic achievement that is evident of Cheong’s creative transformation and experimentation over the years, paving the way for the further development of his prolific career and artistic repertoire. The painting’s strong tropical colours and acute appreciation for the cultural markers that identify the ladies as Sarawakian, bear evidence of the keenness of the artist to depict the cultures, traditions and landscapes he observed in the region, and is without doubt, a strong museum-quality composition that shall enrich and embolden any collection of Nanyang art.