An iconic painting depicting a bunch of students gathered around a table has become a prominent fixture at "Siapa Nama Kamu?" the inaugural exhibition of the DBS Singapore Gallery at National Gallery Singapore. It's none other than National Language Class by Chua Mia Tee (蔡名智) (b. 1931), one of the leading realist artists in Singapore's art history. The 1959 painting captures an important stage of Singapore's history, depicting a group of Chinese students learning Malay, the newly designated national language of Singapore then.
But if you walk into the gallery now hoping to catch a glimpse of the epochal work, you'll find that it's missing. All that's left is an empty wall with a sign that leads to a new exhibition at Level 4 Gallery of the City Hall Wing. The exhibition in question? Chua Mia Tee: Directing the Real, the artist's first museum exhibition since 1992.
With the new exhibition, National Gallery Singapore hopes to offer audiences an insight into Chua's distinct view on realism that goes beyond the mere representation of reality, taking inspiration from the artist’s quote on how “the painter assumes the role of screenwriter, director and actor to freely shape the subject’s image”.
Opening to the public on November 26, Chua Mia Tee: Directing the Real showcases his masterfully painted works that depict vivid scenes and portraits of life and people of Singapore during its transformative years from the 1950s to 1980s. There's the Epic Poem of Malaya (1955), where the artist directs our focus to the central figure reciting a poem to his transfixed audience during Singapore's colonial rule; Portable Cinema (1977), which draws on Chua's childhood memories of watching cinema through portable street carts; and Workers in a Canteen (1974) which captures the boisterous atmosphere of workers at lunch at Jurong shipyard – and is believed to be the artist's favourite.
And who could miss one of Chua's seminal works, Portrait of Lee Boon Ngan (1957), a portrait of a lady who eventually became his wife in 1961.
The exhibition also marks the artist’s first solo institutional exhibition since 1992, a fitting tribute that aptly coincides with his 90th birthday on November 25. Stroll around the gallery and check out over 50 works spanning four decades of his artistic practice – alongside archival materials, film recordings and quotes from the artist's writings, which offer deeper insights into Chua’s artistic philosophies.
The exhibition also sheds light on a period where Chua's artistic growth runs parallel to the development and transformation of Singapore as a nation in its early years. Through his vivid depictions of the country and its inhabitants in this period, the exhibition examines the social tensions across different segments of society as the young nation was laying the foundations for progress and development.
If you're interested in diving deeper into Chua Mia Tee's oeuvre and contributions to Singapore's art history, there are audio guides available in English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil – as well as complementary tours and programmes.
