Google honors Georgette Chen, Singaporean painter with a doodle

Google dedicates a doodle to Georgette Chen, a Singaporean artist and painter, who is considered the founder of the post-Impressionist Nanyang painting style. Originally named Chang Li Ying, Georgette Chen was born on October 23, 1906 in Zhejiang Province, China.

Georgette Chen was exposed to art at a young age. She used to spend her time in painting, visiting museums or roaming around the city while living in Paris. She studied art at the Art Students League of New York for a year in 1926.

Albeit Georgette Chen’s parents provided their financial support for her art education, her decision to become a full-time artist was never totally accepted by them. In 1930, two of Georgette Chen's works were selected for inclusion in the Salon d'Automne exhibition in Paris.

Georgette Chen married Eugene Chen Youren at the age of 24. Eugene was a Chinese diplomat who had served as the foreign minister of Sun Yat-sen's Kuomintang in the 1920s. She was his second wife after the death of his first wife, Agatha Alphosin Ganteaume.

After her husband’s death in May 1944, she started traveling across Asia. She married Ho Yung Chi, a close friend and former aide of Eugene in 1947. In 1949, the artist held a major solo exhibition at the Asia Institute in New York, presenting paintings of China's landscapes and portraits that she created after the war. The couple moved to Paris in 1949, where Chen participated in the Salon d'Automne in Paris for the last time.

Georgette Chen mounted a solo exhibition at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Singapore in the year 1953. During her time in Singapore for the exhibition, she would meet the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) president Lim Hak Tai. Although she received offer from Lim Hak Tai to teach at the academy, she rejected it. In 1953, the couple legally separated, after which she would move to Singapore and spend the most artistically significant years of her life there.

Georgette Chen heavily contributed to visual art education in Singapore, working as a part-time art teacher at NAFA. She devoted her time to teaching and painting. In her paintings from this period, she would paint tropical fruit like rambutan, landscapes depicting the Singapore River, also portraying Sikh guards and Buddhist monks, as she was drawn to the colors of their turbans and robes.

Georgette Chen died of complications on March 15, 1993 from rheumatoid arthritis after an 11-year struggle with the ailment. She died at the age of 86. Google today dedicates a doodle to Chen on the 91st anniversary of her first exhibition at the Salon d’Automne in Paris.

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