Cheong Soo Pieng

(1917-1983)

Toy Store

Footnotes

Provenance
Private Southeast Asian Collection

Exhibited
Singapore, National Museum Art Gallery, Cheong Soo Pieng Retrospective, 1983, unpaginated, illustrated in black and white

Literature
Cheong Soo Pieng, Soo Pieng, Singapore 1983, unpaginated, illustrated in colour and listed as Plate 1

Born and educated in Xiamen, China, Cheong Soo Pieng (1917-1983) is described as one of the greatest artists in Singapore's history. Much has been written on his oeuvre and stylistic periods, yet Soo Pieng is not an artist to be pigeonholed.
 
As a "memory marker", Toy Store is a colourful narrative of social history. A golden age reflected in this very richly aureate work with a light that emanates from the canvas. The seven children, including the little boy with a songkok and baju Melayu—the future of multi-racial Singapore, crowd in front of a toy store perhaps watching a performance of glove puppets with wayang or opera masks and plastic toy swords displayed as merchandising.

As one of the core group of China-born artists that have shaped the direction of Singapore art history, Cheong was featured in the 'Pioneer Artists of Singapore' series of art exhibitions conceived by the National Museum as tribute to his massive impact on the Singapore art scene.