1 Robert Young, Postcolonialism: An historical introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), pp. 57–9.

2 Ibid.

3 Pierre Bourdieu et al., The love of art: European art museums and their public, trans. Caroline Beattie and Nick Merriman (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), p. 109.

4 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste, trans. Richard Nice (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), p. 3.

5 Ibid.

6 David Inglis and John Hughson, Confronting culture: Sociological vistas (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003), p. 196.

7 While there were clear political periods — British Malaya (1819–1942), the Japanese Occupation of Malaya (1942–45), Singapore under PAP (1965–present) — the period between 1945 and 1965 remains politically complex and ambiguous. The notion of a ‘New Malaya’ may be useful to describe Singapore's status then. See H.B. Egmont Hake, The New Malaya and You (London: Lindsay Drummond, 1945).

8 See Ronald Provencher, ‘Islam in Malaysia and Thailand’, in The crescent in the East: Islam in Asia Major, ed. Raphael Israeli (London: Curzon, 1982), pp. 145, 148; T.N. Harper, The end of empire and the making of Malaya (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 18–19.

9 Leo Suryadinata, Chinese and nation-building in Southeast Asia (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2005), pp. 35–6; Provencher, ‘Islam in Malaysia and Thailand’, pp. 148–9.

10 Prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman remarked that the road to the merger (of Singapore and Malaya) lay ultimately in all the races developing a Malayan outlook and loyalty. Allington Kennard, ‘The year of merger’, Straits Times Annual (Singapore: Straits Times, 1963).

11 ‘The Malayan situation in 1948’ [Nov. 1948], Three reports of the Malayan problem (New York: International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations, 1949), pp. 1–17.

12 Walter Blaschke, Freedom for Malaya, foreword by L.L. Sharkey (Sydney: Current Book Distributors, n.d.). In 1954, the estimated population of Singapore was 1,191,090 of whom 910,866 were Chinese. Handbook to Malaya (Federation of Malaya and the colony of Singapore) and the Emergency of Malaya (Singapore: Department of Information, Federation of Malaya, May 1955), p. 3.

13 Rupert Emerson, From empire to nation: The rise of the assertion of Asian and African people (Boston: Beacon Press, 1962), p. 92.

14 Wilfred Plumbe, The golden pagoda tree: Adventures in Southeast Asia (London: Grey Seal, 1990), p. 45.

15 Modern art practices were being developed in groups such as the Singapore Art Club, founded in the 1880s, and the Amateur Drawing Association, founded in 1909. I discuss this extensively in my dissertation, ‘Women artists: Becoming professional in Singapore, Malaya and Indonesia’.

16 Wang Gungwu, ‘Sojourning: The Chinese experience in Southeast Asia’, in Sojourners and settlers: Histories of Southeast Asia and the Chinese, ed. Anthony Reid (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1996), p. 10.

17 Seng Yu Jin, ‘Art and ideology: The Singapore Art Society and the Malayan Emergency (1948–1960)’, in From words to pictures: Art during the Emergency (Singapore: Singapore Art Museum, 2007), p. 10.

18 ‘Art exhibition by S'pore YMCA’, Singapore Free Press, 11 Dec. 1953.

19 See ‘Richard Walker's art collection for show’, Straits Times, 4 July 1972; ‘The man who started art education in S'pore’, Straits Times, 15 Mar. 1989.

20 See Richard Walker, ‘Ruminations’, Singapore Art Society souvenir magazine (SAS, 1969). The magazine was issued to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the founding of Singapore and SAS's 20th anniversary.

21 Joseph McNally, ‘Pre-Independence Art in Singapore’, in Many in one: 25 years of art in Singapore (Singapore: National Museum, 1984 [unpaginated]).

22 See Singapore Art Society Souvenir Magazine.

23 For a full list, see ibid.

24 The remaining founders included Charles Salisbury (British Council), Francis Thomas (Chairman, Inter-School Art Exhibition Committee), Roy Morrell (Professor, University of Malaya), Liu Kang (President, Society of Chinese Artists), Inche Suri bin Mohyani, Phyllis MacKenzie and Tok Khoon Seng. Frank Sullivan, prior to moving to Kuala Lumpur, as Secretary to Tunku Abdul Rahman, also served on the SAS board, and was instrumental in facilitating joint exhibitions between Singapore and Malaya. See Neil Manton, The arts of independence: Frank Sullivan in Singapore and Malaysia (Canberra: Hall Arts, 2008).

25 Liu Kang, ‘Western painting in Singapore over the last forty-five years’, in Re-connecting: Selected writings on Singapore art and art criticism, trans. Cheo Chai-Hiang, ed. T.K. Sabapathy and Cheo Chai-Hiang (Singapore: Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore and La Salle-SIA College of the Arts, 2005), pp. 85–90; ‘History of the Society’, in The Society of Chinese Artists: 30th anniversary souvenir magazine (Singapore: Hiap Seng, 1965).

26 Marco Hsu, A brief history of Malayan art, trans. Lai Chee Kien (Singapore: Millennium Books, 1999 [1963]), p. 42.

27 See Yeo Mang Thong, Essays on the history of pre-war Chinese painting in Singapore [in Chinese] (Singapore: Singapore Society of Asian Studies, 1992), pp. 40–41.

28 Hsu, A brief history of Malayan art, p. 42.

29 Yeo Mang Thong, Essays on the history of pre-war Chinese painting, pp. 74–5. Yong Mun Sen, SCA's first vice-president, wrote from Penang about the idea of setting up a Fine Art Academy. See 南洋美术之父林学大 [Nanyang art's founder Lim Hak Tai] (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Arts Research Centre, 1991).

30 Aileen Lau, NAFA 70th anniversary 1938–2008 (Singapore: Suntree Media for NAFA, 2009).

31 Ong Zhen Min, ‘A history of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (1938–1990)’ (M.A. thesis, National University of Singapore, 2006), p. 54.

32 Ibid.; Zhong Yu, Malaixiya huaren meishu shi (1900–1965) [A history of Malaysian Chinese art, 1900–1965] (Kuala Lumpur: Chung Chen Sun Art & Design Group, 1999), p. 36.

33 In 1946 there were 30 new students, of whom 12 were not local.

34 Aileen Lau, NAFA 70th anniversary, p. 15.

35 See Ong Zhen Min (‘A history of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts’, p. 55) for details of a 1940 Nanyang Siang Pau article on NAFA.

36 See Yvonne Low, ‘Singapore's modern art: Modern aesthetic responses of Overseas Chinese and Chinese Singaporeans in Singapore’ (M.A. thesis, University of Sydney, 2009).

37 They were Cheong Soo Pieng, Chen Chong Swee, Chen Wen Hsi and Georgette Chen. See T.K. Sabapathy, ‘Hak Tai points the way’, Straits Times, 28 Feb. 1981; Redza Piyadasa, ‘Modernist and post-modernist developments in Malaysian art in the post-Independence period’, in Modernity in Asian art, ed. John Clark (Sydney: Wild Peony, 1993), pp. 155–68.

38 Wright was a documentary producer and writer in Southeast Asia; see http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/1966/wright-wynona-noni-hope (last accessed 1 Nov. 2014).

39 Noni Wright, ‘East and West meet in a Malayan style of painting’, Sunday Times, 29 Oct. 1950, p. 5. The article was republished in First Painting Collections of the Nanyang Fine Art Academy by the Sixth Graduates (Singapore: NAFA, 1951), pp. 33–4.

40 Ibid.

41 Kim Sloan, ‘A noble art’: Amateur artists and drawing masters, c.1600–1800 (London: British Museum, 2000), p. 7.

42 Ibid., p. 8.

43 Michael Sullivan, ‘Ten years of Singapore Art’, in SAS, Ten years of art in Singapore 1946–1956 (Singapore: SAS, 1956).

44 Joseph McNally, ‘Pre-Independence art in Singapore’, in National Museum of Singapore, 25 years of art in Singapore (Singapore: National Museum, 1984 [unpaginated]). McNally recalled the art groups led briefly by Yong Mun Sen during a short stay in Singapore, by Ho Kwong Yew, who hosted visiting artists such as Xu Beihong and Sze-to Cheow at his home, and by Don Kingman.

45 See Sloan, ‘A noble art’, pp. 7–10.

46 For example, A definitive exhibition of Malay arts and crafts (21–29 July 1951); Second annual exhibition of works by Local Teachers and Art Students (20–28 Oct. 1951); A loan exhibition of Chinese art (2–11 May 1952); Fourth annual exhibition of works by local artists (18–26 Apr. 1953).

47 ‘S'pore teachers’ art show’, Singapore Free Press, 23 Oct. 1950.

48 On the notion of ‘Malayan-multicultural’, see Yvonne Low, ‘Remembering Nanyang Feng'ge’, in Modern Art Asia: Selected papers issues 1–9, ed. Majella Munro (n.p.: Enzo Arts, 2012), pp. 229–60.

49 ‘S'pore teachers’ art show’, 23 Oct. 1950.

50 ‘Thousands at inter-school art show’, Straits Times, 10 May 1950.

51 SAS amalgamated it to become the society's annual show and anniversary celebration; the last exhibition under this title, Exhibition of works by local artists, was in 1972.

52 ‘Art Society will hold exhibition’, Singapore Free Press, 30 Dec. 1949.

53 See, for example, the catalogue: Singapore Art Society Fourth Annual Exhibition of Works by Local Artists (Singapore: SAS, 1953).

54 Nan Hall, ‘You couldn't see the pictures for artists’, Straits Times, 19 Apr. 1953.

55 For example, Kum was among the three artists who received special mention as ‘promising exhibitors’ by the reviewer of the 1959 Malayan Artists' Exhibition; ‘An art show that is alive with vigour and talent’, Straits Times, 18 May 1959.

56 Liu Kang, ‘Western painting in Singapore over the last forty-five years’.

57 The art of Kum Yuen Sim has yet to be studied. She is not included in Bridget T. Tan and Wei-Wei Yeo, Women artists in Singapore (Singapore: Select, 2012). Information about Kum's life and work was traced from newspaper articles and exhibition catalogues, for example: ‘School girl wins top prize in art competition’, Singapore Free Press, 5 Dec. 1961.

58 ‘Society plans shows to introduce local artists’, Singapore Free Press, 13 Nov. 1961. Twenty-eight of Kum's paintings were put up for sale at her solo exhibition at the British Council. Ho Kok Hoe said, ‘The society had decided to sponsor such one-man shows regularly with a view to “exposing” many local artists, who being innately shy of publicity, had remained obscure and almost unknown to the outside world’ (ibid.).

59 Ibid.

60 This exhibition was opened by the President of the China Society and then Secretary to the Cultural Minister, Lee Siow Mong. It was likely that following this exhibition, Sunyee stayed on in Singapore, to manage and teach at China Society's Singapore Academy of Arts. ‘Miss Sun Yee shows 100 of her paintings in the East and the West’, Straits Times, 13 May 1954.

61 For example, ibid.; ‘Art classes next month’, Singapore Free Press, 10 Apr. 1957.

62 Ibid.

63 ‘Artist dies, age 91’, Straits Times, 4 May 2010.

64 One of her students, Inche Yunos bin Aman, later obtained a French Government scholarship to study fine arts in Paris (‘Malay artist gets scholarship to study in Paris’, Singapore Free Press, 30 Oct. 1961). Liu Kang seemed aware of students that she had ‘groomed’, namely Yeo Kim Seng, Yau Tian You and Wee Kong Chai. Liu Kang, The art of Sunyee [沈雁画集] (Singapore: Zhu Zhe, 1997).

65 Even though Sunyee was already in Singapore in 1954, she was not a member of the selection committee or a participant despite being an established artist. It was unlikely that the close-knit art circle did not know of her. This provisional assumption was based on the examination of available records of SAS annual exhibitions for professional artists: 4th (1953), 6th (1955), 7th (1956), 9th (1957) 10th (1958), 11th (1959), 12th (1960), 13th (1961), 14th (1962), 15th (1963), 16th (1964), 17th (1965).

66 The courses were conducted on Monday and Wednesday evenings and on Tuesday and Sunday mornings. According to Sunyee, it took four years to become ‘a qualified artist’. See ‘Merdeka: A fillip to culture’, Singapore Free Press, 15 Apr. 1957 and ‘Want to learn to paint?’, Singapore Free Press, 16 Apr. 1957.

67 Ibid.

68 See, for example, Mohamed Ali Abdul Rahman, Modern Malaysian art: Manifestation of Malay form and content (Shah Alam: Biroteks, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 2000); Mahamood Muliyadi, Modern Malaysian art: From the pioneering era to the pluralist era (1930s–1990s) (Kuala Lumpur: Utusan, 2007); Tan Chee Khuan, Penang artists 1920–1990 (Penang: Art Gallery, 1990); Redza Piyadasa, Rupa Malaysia: A decade of Art 1987–1997 (Kuala Lumpur: National Art Gallery of Malaysia, 1998); Semangat pelopor seni: 1950an–1960an, The pioneering spirit (Kuala Lumpur: Balai Seni Lukis Negara, 1997); and most recently, Imagining identities: Narratives in Malaysian art; vol. 1, ed. Nur Hanim Khairuddin, Beverly Yong and T.K. Sabapathy (Kuala Lumpur: Rogue Art, 2012).

69 For a succinct history of art development in Penang, see Chew Teng Beng, ‘History of the development of art in Penang’, in Penang Artists 1920–1990 (Penang: The Art Gallery, 1990), pp. 5–7. Also see Semangat Pelopor Seni for further information on WAG members.

70 Redza Piyadasa, ‘The treatment of the local landscape in Modern Malaysian Art, 1930–1981’, in Imagining identities, pp. 26–51.

71 The Arts Council's Mubin Sheppard and Frank Sullivan first proposed the idea of a National Art Gallery between 1954 and 1956. It was established in 1959, with Frank Sullivan as its first administrator.

72 See further Dolores Wharton, Contemporary artists of Malaysia: A biographic survey (Petaling Jaya: Asia Society, 1971).

73 See Wharton, Contemporary artists; Chew Teng Beng, ‘History of the development of art in Penang’. Tay Hooi Keat was an art teacher, then a federal art inspector for schools in West Malaya.

74 Syed Ahmad Jamal attended the Birmingham School of Architecture in 1950 and then the Chelsea School of Art in 1951 on a Johore State Scholarship, followed by a one-year teaching course at the Institute of Education, University of London, in 1955.

75 T.K. Sabapathy, Yeoh Jin Leng: Art and thought 1952–1995 (Kuala Lumpur: National Art Gallery, 1995), p. 13. Ismail Zain taught in Kedah and then at a Teachers' Training College in Kelantan.

76 Interview with Yeoh Jin Leng, Kuala Lumpur, 6 Nov. 2012.

77 Sabapathy, Yeoh Jin Leng, p. 14. In my interview with Yeoh, he did not recall any women in the class of about ten students who opted for art as their special subject (interview, 6 Dec. 2012).

78 Interview with Yeoh Jin Leng, 6 Nov 2012.

79 Ibid.

80 Tay Hung Ghee, ‘An experience in England’, 1982, unpub. essay, Balai Seni Visual Negara Database, Kuala Lumpur (accessed 27 Nov. 2012).

81 See interview transcript, ‘Dialogue between Yeoh Jin Leng and T.K. Sabapathy’, in Yeoh Jin Leng, p. 74.

82 Interview with Yeoh Jin Leng, 6 Nov. 2012. He said, ‘That's how I became an artist, accidentally’.

83 Tay Hung Ghee, ‘An experience in England’.

84 Interview with Yeoh Jin Leng, 6 Nov. 2012.

85 Sabapathy, Yeoh Jin Leng, p. 43.

86 See T.K. Sabapathy and Redza Piyadasa, Modern artists of Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: Ministry of Education Malaysia, 1983), pp. 13–14. Some, like Ahmad Haji Hashim, Redza Piyadasa, Ahmad Yusuf and Chew Teng Beng, subsequently established reputations of diverse importance both as artists and as teachers in tertiary institutions offering programmes in art.

87 Abdul Latiff bin Mohidin, who went to the Berlin University of Fine Art on a German Government scholarship and a number of others, too numerous to name, on Fulbright scholarships. Long Thien Shih was awarded a French Government Scholarship in 1967.

88 See interview transcript, ‘Dialogue between Yeoh Jin Leng and T.K. Sabapathy’, Yeoh Jin Leng, p. 80.

89 For example, Lee Joo For was then the head of the Department of Arts and Crafts, Syed Ahmad Jamal was the principal, and Tay Hung Ghee taught weaving.

90 Sabapathy, Yeoh Jin Leng, p. 43.

91 See as well Sarena Abdullah's discussion of WAG and other early art groups as pioneers of Malaysian art, where there were no ‘hard and fast rules concerning a definite aesthetic position’ in ‘Postmodernism in Malaysian art’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Sydney, 2010).

92 J. Anu, ‘In the forefront of Malayan art’, Sunday Star, 23 June 1996. The prevalence of overaged students was likely a result of the disruption to education during the Japanese Occupation.

93 See Peter Harris: Founder of the Wednesday Art Group (Penang: The Art Gallery, 2001).

94 Anu, ‘In the forefront of Malayan art’.

95 Ooi Kok Chuen, ‘Patriarch of WAG’, New Straits Times, 24 June 1996. Jamal taught in Indian schools in rubber estates during his spare time, and devoted Sunday afternoons to teaching English and art to the leper children in Sungai Buloh.

96 Peter Harris: Founder of the Wednesday Art Group.

97 See Ooi Kok Chuen's overview of art societies in Malaysia and Singapore, ‘When artists come together …’, Penang Monthly, 29 Aug. 2013.

98 Peter Harris: Founder of the Wednesday Art Group, p. 15.

99 Ibid., p. 5.

100 Ibid., see in particular chap. 6.

101 ‘Destination adventure — thirty heard call and soon their work will go on show’, Straits Times, 20 Nov. 1956.

102 Plumbe, The golden pagoda tree, p. 22.

103 Stephen Fitzgerald argues that the CCP's abrupt change in policy was in part due to the realisation that many Overseas Chinese were divided in their attitude towards China and unable to adapt to its society. See also Leo Suryadinata, ‘The ethnic Chinese in the ASEAN states’, in The Ethnic Chinese in the ASEAN States, ed. Leo Suryadinata (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), pp. 4–42.

104 ‘Foreword’, Wednesday Art Group Exhibition 2 (Kuala Lumpur: Wah Kiew Printing, 1957 [unpaginated]).

105 Lai Chee Kian, Building Merdeka: Independence architecture in Kuala Lumpur 1957–1966 (Kuala Lumpur: Galeri Petronas, 2007), p. 9.

106 Sabapathy and Piyadasa, Modern artists of Malaysia, p. 11.

107 Ibid.

108 Wharton, Contemporary artists of Malaysia, p. 97.

109 Teo Ee Sim, ‘Painting “nudes” wins KL artist a $4000 prize’, Straits Times, 18 Nov. 1968.

110 Talented (self-taught) individuals were already being commissioned to create works that were representative of Malayan culture. One notable example was Yong Mun Seng,  who contributed eight pieces to the Malayan Stall at the 1948 British Industries Fair, commissioned by the Department of Industry and Commerce, Malaya. See Pioneers of Malaysian art, ed. Tan Chee Khuan (Penang: The Art Gallery, 1994), especially Joseph McNally, ‘Yong Mun Sen’, pp. 70–111.

111 Wharton, Contemporary artists of Malaysia. Patrick Ng was on an Indian Government travel grant, 1962, followed by a Sino-British Fellowship Trust for study in England in 1964.

112 Chermin, ‘Young artists who are setting their own style…’, Straits Times, 1 Dec. 1961. See also Manton, The arts of independence.

113 ‘Dialogue between Yeoh Jin Leng and T.K. Sabapathy’ (1995). During my interview with Yeoh (6 Nov. 2012), he mentioned that initially he had not been aware of professional or public art opportunities and it was Sullivan who helped him send in artwork for exhibitions and competitions.