Artist Detail | Ilham Gallery
Lee Cheng Yong
1913 - 1974, Malaysia
Lee Cheng Yong
1913 - 1974, Malaysia

A contemporary of Yong Mun Sen, Lee Cheng Yong (b. 1913-1974, China) was a pioneering and versatile artist and educator. In 1930, Lee graduated from the Xin Hua University of Arts in Shanghai. It is unclear when he began his art teaching career at Chung Ling High School in Penang, but by 1932, he was holding a solo show at the Philatelic Union at Acheen Street, George Town, the second artist to hold a solo exhibition in the country, after artist Ooi Hwa in 1927. Lee was an activist and an avid founding member of the Society of Chinese Artists in Singapore (1935), Ying Ying Art Society (1936), and the Penang Art Society (1953). In 1936, he was also elected president of the Penang Chinese Art Society, with Yong Mun Sen as vice president. Remembered by his students as a stern but kind man, the reclusive artist was granted two retrospective exhibitions in 1966 at the Penang State Art Gallery and The Art Gallery, Penang. His multi-medium oeuvre containing gouache landscapes, oil portraits and sculptures have been shown at Artists Imagine A Nation (2015) at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and The Nanyang Show (2016) at the Visual Arts Centre, both located in Singapore.