Lot 69: GEORGETTE CHEN

GEORGETTE CHEN
1907-1992
FRUITS DE MER
Indistinctively signed upper right
Oil on canvas
38 by 46 cm.; 15 by 18 1/4 in.
S$28000-38000
US$16970-23030

With its combination of lyricism, serenity and sincerity, Georgette Chen's paintings mark the surprisingly placid, almost contradictory nature of modernism's genesis in Singapore. But with her unusual background, Chen is a fitting representative of new art in a young republic populated largely by recent immigrants.
Born in Paris and educated in France, China and America, Chen settled in Singapore after the turbulence of the Second World War, finding in the island a suitable, relatively secure environment to pursue her interest in art. She rapidly developed a style of painting that documented and captured the spirit of Singapore in the immediate decades after the war. Her paintings are subtle and sensitive, imbued with the understated elegance of traditional Chinese paintings. Even her still-lifes echo the traditional Chinese brush paintings of fruit and flowers, which always mark or celebrate particular seasons, or symbolise auspicious wishes related to birthdays and other life-cycle events. Chen's modernity is situated in her expressive application of paint and colour, which display a clear link to the work of the French Impressionists.
This connection is especially evident in her exceptionally rare early works, which show the artist's mastery of Cezanne-like still-lifes. Even at that time it was obvious that she was drawing influences more from technique rather than subject matter. Georgette Chen's early still-lifes are not tableaux of carefully arranged objects, but rather intimate, uncontrived snapshots - a half-finished meal, food waiting to be cooked or eaten.
In this example, the artist presents a plate lined with paper on which is placed an arrangement of fish, prawn and two halves of lemons. The viewpoint is raised, and the frame of the image is close to the object. The background colours are a muted range of white and beige allowing the brilliant red and pink of the fish and prawn, as well as the yellow of the lemons, to stand out as chromatic accents.
Perhaps the greatest importance of this work is not in its subject nor technique, which, although highly accomplished, was at that time already quite dated in a Western context, but in overcoming many odds to be a pioneer female Asian artist who channeled her talents towards creating not further mimicries, but art that quietly related her experiences as an Asian in a style that was honest, intimate and elegant.