1 Lim Hak Tai – Art and Life 林学大 - 艺术与生活 By Low Sze Wee First published: Catalogue for Crossing Visions – Singapore and Xiamen: Lim Hak Tai and Lim Yew Kuan Art Exhibition 传承与开拓- 林学大及林友权术作品展 organised by Xiamen Art Museum and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, 2011 (with some revisions by the author in 2020) On 15 July 2011, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong officiated at the opening of the new campus for the School of the Arts, Singapore’s first government pre-tertiary arts school. When plans for the school were first announced, many hailed it as a sign that the arts scene had finally matured, with parents willing to send their children to such a school and official recognition of the need to nurture young artistic talents. 1 Much of this would not have been possible without the efforts of earlier art educators who had persevered for decades amidst public scepticism without much government support. Lim Hak Tai is one such seminal figure in Singapore’s art history. His role in helping to found and sustain Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) - Singapore’s longest established art academy - is well-known. 2 Set up in 1938, NAFA is, today, a thriving art school, having nurtured numerous students in Singapore and Malaysia, many of whom have become important artists in their own right. Whilst Lim’s role as an art educator is fairly well-documented, his artistic practice remains less visible even though he was an established artist in his time. This may be attributed to several reasons. Firstly, due to his frail health, he chose to devote much of his time and efforts in running NAFA. Hence, he did not produce many works, apart from occasional pieces for the academy’s annual exhibitions and some group shows. 3 Secondly, although his works were sometimes sold to raise funds for the academy, he felt that art was for appreciating and not selling. 4 Hence, he never held a solo exhibition in his lifetime, unlike his NAFA colleagues Chen Wen His 陈文希 and Cheong Soo Pieng 钟泗滨 who each held several shows in the 1950s. As a result, there is no definitive catalogue of Lim’s paintings. Lastly, many of his works were kept in poor condition in the academy campus, and later found to be badly damaged after his demise. Hence, there are only about 100 or so known works by Lim today, about half of which are oil paintings and the rest are Chinese paintings and calligraphy. Unfortunately, some only exist as black and white photographs and their present locations are unknown. None of the works he produced in China before his arrival in Singapore in the late 1930s seemed to have survived. This essay shall examine some of Lim’s more significant works in relation to his personal life as well as the larger socio-historical context. In particular, they shall also be discussed in the context of Lim’s contribution to the discourse on Nanyang art – a local art movement distinctive to this part of the world. Lim was the earliest to provide a definition for the term ‘Nanyang art’ as it was applied to the visual arts. He was a fervent believer that Nanyang art would flourish in due course, and had coined the name of NAFA in 1938 as an expression of this belief.