Parisian Canvas, Asian Brush: A Story of Art and Identities

What Tsuguharu Foujita and other Asian artists teach us about synthesising the cultures of East and West

Singaporean artist Liu Kang with his European friends in Paris. Image by author.

My stay in Singapore coincided with the exhibition period of City of Others: Asian Artists in Paris, 1920s-1940s, which was shown at the Singtel Special Exhibition Galleries, National Gallery Singapore.

As an Asian art lover who grew up in Europe, the exhibition drew me in immediately, as the curators attempted to “examine the art history of Paris from Asian perspectives…[and] compare the experiences of Asian artists in Paris during a dynamic period of time.”

National Gallery of Singapore. Image by author.

The National Gallery was an interesting place in its own right.

At the heart of the Civic District of Singapore, it consists of the former Supreme Court building and the City Hall.

Visitors could see the holding cells of criminals at the Gallery’s wing, which used to be the Supreme Court.