Cheong Soo Pieng

Private Collection, Singapore

This work is in good overall condition as viewed. There is evidence of very light wear to the edges and corners of the work, due to abrasions with the frame. There is some craquelure to the pigment, consistent with the age of the work. Examination under ultraviolet light reveals some areas of restoration at the edges and corners of the work, and some horizontal areas of restoration at the right side, center, as well as some diagonal lines of restoration at the left side, center, and some very minor and tiny spots of restoration at the surface of the work. Framed.
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“Western easel painting conventions and Chinese ink painting pictorial formats and techniques…came to cement his artistic style”.

Yeo Wei Wei, Cheong Soo Pieng; Visions of Southeast Asia, The National Art Gallery, Singapore, 2010, pg. 21.

The painting Women Planting Rice is a classic work from Cheong Soo Pieng’s oeuvre, for it features the artist’s highly celebrated Nanyang subject matter, notably the lives of the villagers and their domestic interactions with one another. The artist has depicted the sweeping landscape of a farm in angular forms, the organic shapes of the rice paddy, women planting rice, and the trees in the far off distance, all are inspired by cubism and classical Chinese paintings. The compositional layout alludes to classical Chinese aesthetics where the environment is shown in balanced proportions, with the land and sky evenly separated to harmonize the painting.

Cheong Soo Pieng’s experimentation with pictorial schema can be found in many of his figurative works about the Nanyang people, notably the Malayan and Singapore paintings. The artist’s application of Western styles with Chinese pictorial idioms is evident in Women Planting Rice. The simple yet refined way he has drawn the women compliments a landscape that is overall absent of forms. Their linear formation in the painting further establishes the audience to delve deeper into the landscape scene. He has transformed a quiet domestic scene into a poetical study of shapes and colors, thereby finding the essence of the scene at hand and conveying in its purest form.