Born Chang Li Ying in 1906, Georgette Chen, one of Singapore’s pioneer visual artists, belonged to a family of 12 children in Zejiang Province, China. Better known for her Post-Impressionistic styled oil paintings, her contributions helped start the Nanyang art style – a hybrid of Asian and Western forms and techniques – in Singapore.

Her father, Chang Sen Chek was an antique dealer with businesses in cities such as Paris, London and New York, which gave Chen an early exposure to the western culture. Despite living in the West, the Chang family was deeply rooted to their Chinese culture and strictly conversed in Mandarin at home. A subscriber of Sun Yat Sen’s revolutionary cause, Mr Chang regularly brought his family to China to support Sun’s revolt . He believed that these trips will instill their cultural identity even further.

With her comfortable lifestyle, Chen had the privilege to be exposed to the arts at a young age and spent most of her life in Paris painting or visiting museums. Although she attended high school in America and pursued art at the Art Students League of New York for a year in 1926, she felt more at ease with the Parisian Lifestyle. Even though her parents felt a career as a professional artist was not viable, she returned to the French capital in 1927 and studied at the Académie Colarossi and Académie Biloul under the financial support of her family.

In 1930, Chen married Eugene Chen Youren, a Chinese Foreign Minister and friend of Sun Yat Sen. As an avid lover of the music and the arts; he admired Chen’s desire to be a full-time artist. In that same year, Chen’s submission to the Salon d’Automne exhibition in Paris was accepted for the first time. Her works were later exhibited at two major exhibitions in Paris – at the Palace of Painting and the Women’s Painters Exhibition in 1937. However, her time with her husband was short-lived. The Sino-Japanese War unfolded by the late 1930s and the Chens were imprisoned. Mr Chen died as a prisoner-of-war in 1944.

Her love for Mr Chen was evident – between the 1930s to the 1940s, she produced many still-life paintings of her husband. Many have praised her painting techniques which exuded influences of Dutch artist, Vincent Van Gogh. She resided in Shanghai in the 1940s but moved back to Paris with her second husband, Dr Ho Yung Chi in 1949 and continued practicing art. By 1953, she had relocated to Singapore after her divorce with Dr Ho and began teaching art part-time at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts from 1954 to 1980. Her later works such as Mosque in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore Waterfront exemplified her ability to incorporate Asian and Western styles.

For her artistic endeavours, Chen was awarded the Singapore Cultural Medallion in 1982. She passed away from rheumatoid arthritis in 1993 after an 11-year struggle with the illness. After her death, her house on Siglap was auctioned for S$2.8 million – the money was used to fund the Georgette Chen Arts Scholarship for arts students. 53 of Chen’s paintings were discovered stowed away in her home and were eventually donated to the Singapore Art Museum in 1994 – bringing the total number of Chen’s paintings in the museum’s collection to 104. Sales from Chen’s personal investments of stocks and shares were used to fund various projects such as the new building for the Singapore Council of Women’s Organisations (SCWO) and community welfare efforts for the local Malay community.