An artist's enduring love

Singapore's oldest living pioneer artist Lim Tze Peng turns 100 in September, but he is not one to let his age - or a pandemic, for that matter - get in the way of his art.

Every morning, he walks 20 steps from his bed to a studio down the hallway. Standing in front of a piece of paper clipped to a board against the wall, he picks up his brush and wields it resolutely.

Calligraphy, old street scenes and paintings of sinuous trees continue to emerge from his studio - all part of Lim's quest to keep improving and innovating. Many are large works, spanning around 2m in width or height.

"I want to keep a few hundred of those paintings of mine that are good and donate them to the country," he says. "I have one request: that a place, like an art museum, be set up to exhibit them. I hope the Government will be able to do this."

His latest exhibition, Soul Of Ink: Lim Tze Peng At 100, was launched by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at The Arts House on Tuesday, along with a book of the same title about the man behind the art.

At the launch, PM Lee spoke of an upcoming gallery at the venue that will honour Singapore's Cultural Medallion recipients, of whom Lim is one.

The book's author, media veteran Woon Tai Ho, 62, says: "Every time, I have to pinch myself that this is a 100-year-old man."

The exhibition's curator Low Sze Wee says Lim's latest works have a new-found interest in colours that are "much bolder, even surrealistic, experimental".

The 20 exhibited ink works, which were recently completed, range from abstract calligraphy - Lim calls them "hu tu zi" or muddled calligraphy - to abstract trees to figurative street paintings.

Four streetscapes were painted on location in the 1980s, featuring detailed brushwork and sparing use of colour. Last year, the artist added bold, neon-like colours to these old works.

Mr Low, who is also the chief executive of the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre, adds that Lim's earlier street paintings are "windows" into vanishing scenes of Singapore, while the large, recent ones are "like a stage you can step onto".

One such piece, measuring about 2m by 2.4m, depicts a shophouse in Kreta Ayer. It was painted from memory and one can make out dried fish hanging next to undergarments on a clothes pole.

For nine months, Mr Woon, founder of Channel NewsAsia, visited Lim at least once every week. He would observe the artist, waiting for him to say something that would offer a glimpse into his "piercingly clear mind".

"He's not like any person you can just interview. You wait for those moments," he says.

"Nan de" (Chinese for hard to come by or precious) is a word that comes up a lot when this reporter meets Lim a fortnight ago in his studio, which is on the second floor of his Telok Kurau terrace house.

It is "nan de" to be born into this world, the self-taught artist says in Mandarin. "So we should contribute to our country, to society."

During the interview, the artist is in good health and good spirits. His fingers are stained with ink - earlier in the day, he was working on a scene of the Singapore River. The work is filled with splashes of colour.

Lim is not impressed - it is just an "ordinary" piece of work, he says. "I want to make some changes to it. The colours are too pale."

These days, he has a simple diet - oats and a bit of bread for breakfast, porridge for lunch, no fatty meat.

He practises calligraphy and paints whenever he can. "Sometimes, my friends visit me. Otherwise, I'm working on my art, so I don't waste any time."

His eldest son Su Kok, 77, a retiree who used to work in sales and visits his father very often, says: "My dad's greatest joy in life is painting. It is his only hobby. He wants to paint, create even better paintings and leave them for the next generation. That is his wish."

Su Kok's name is composed of the Chinese characters for "tree" and "country". Why did his parents name him so?

"Because of 'bai nian shu ren' (a saying that means 'it takes 100 years to nurture a man')."

The idiom applies, more starkly than ever, to Lim the centenarian artist. His life and art are entwined. He often finds it hard to fall asleep, his mind occupied with thoughts of painting. Art, one might say, is what keeps him alive.

"Every day, I paint and write. The strokes go left, right, up, down. It becomes a form of exercise. I tell my friends that calligraphy and painting are good for the body. They give you a long life."

Sometimes, his hand trembles when he holds a brush or pen, but he says it is not serious.

The artist, Mr Low observes, has found a successful approach to overcoming the limits of his body - "relying less on being able to do very detailed work and emphasising more the strength of the stroke and the use of bold colours".

He adds: "In Singapore, we seldom have artists who are able to very seamlessly bring calligraphy and painting together. He is one of the few rare individuals who have very successfully done so."

Lim, the eldest of seven children, was born in 1921 to a rubber planter and a housewife. He grew up in a kampung in Pasir Ris and fell in love with calligraphy when he was a student at Chung Cheng High School.

In 1949, he started his career as a teacher at Xin Min School, before retiring as principal in 1981 to become a full-time artist.

In conversation, he likes to reiterate favourite adages of his.

"There are no shortcuts in art."

"Life is short, but art endures."

"An artist must have a good character. He must be serious; even more sincere than a religious man."

A painter should also focus on subjects from his own country, he says. "Stray too far and you become like a tree without roots."

Lim and his wife Soh Siew Lay have six children and more than 20 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The couple met during the Japanese Occupation when she escaped to a house near his kampung.

"I am the second wife. The first wife is his art," she once told The Straits Times, half in jest.

Her son Su Kok says: "We owe her too much. She made sacrifices all her life to support my father. And all her life, she never complained."

Mr Woon describes in tender, evocative terms the vital role played by Madam Soh in Lim's life.

She is now in her 90s and has dementia. At one point, the family sent her to a facility where she could be under constant supervision. But she eventually moved back home - the house felt empty when she was not there.

"Everywhere (Lim) looked, her face, her voice, her touch came back to him," Mr Woon writes.

"The first painting he sold, the first exhibition, the first award - there she was. He remembered painting in Chinatown under the scorching midday sun; she held an umbrella over his head and the painting. He saw her tiny frame walking behind him, carrying his paints as they arrived at the Singapore River. Every location, rain or shine, squeezing through crowds, or when they went around searching for new locations to paint, she was his extra pair of eyes and hands, a voice of encouragement and comfort."

Mr Woon's book contains other nuggets of detail. Not many people might know that Lim joined the People's Action Party when it was formed in 1954.

He wrote lots of campaign slogans for the party during the election the following year, but later concluded that it was better to focus on his art and on being a school principal.

In 2003, Lim was awarded the Cultural Medallion. In 2012, his Chinese ink painting Singapore River Scene (1978) went under the hammer for HK$620,000 (S$101,800) at Christie's Hong Kong, the first time a work by a living Singapore artist fetched more than $100,000 at an international auction.

In 2016, he received the Meritorious Service Medal at the National Day Awards.

For someone with so many accolades to his name, Lim's humility is staggering. He tells this reporter: "It's incredible that at 100, I can still paint, practise calligraphy and have good friends helping me - like you, you come to interview me, and it gives me huge encouragement."

Lim's friend and neighbour Chua Eng Lee, 62, who had invited Mr Woon to pen the book on the artist, says: "He fulfils the definition of a Chinese gentleman. Artists have their unique personalities, but he is so approachable, so willing to share and teach."

The retired banker adds: "He is a son of the soil: born here, bred here. He developed his career, everything, in Singapore. He is now returning what he has learnt, achieved and benefited from this soil back to the nation."

Mr Woon says: "Mr Lim thinks of himself as an ordinary man, even though he has achieved extraordinary things. He has been called many things, but in this book, I call him a patriotic artist."