Golden yolks of narcissus flowers draw our attention. Camellias brush against each other, their petals lustrous and scarlet. In this garden laid in canvas, pockets of impasto — thickly applied paint — glisten invitingly under spotlights. 

A visual treat in bloom awaits visitors at The Art of Lee Boon Ngan: Celebrating 60 Years of Singapore through the Love of Chua Mia Tee & Lee Boon Ngan. Running till 21 September 2025 at The Private Museum, the exhibition displays works by Singaporean artist Lee Boon Ngan alongside pieces by her partner, the realist painter Chua Mia Tee.

Brought together by Lee and Chua’s artists’ estate, The Private Museum, and Curatorial Advisor Zou Lu, The Art of Lee Boon Ngan invites visitors to explore different aspects of Lee’s artistic life through the rooms of the historic Osborne House, while celebrating the couple for their love and legacy of dedicating their lives to art and the nation. While I felt (especially given the exhibition title) that there could be a greater number of Lee’s works on display, the thematic use of the exhibition spaces still presented fertile ground for encounters with various facets of her practice, from her acclaimed floral paintings to her family’s multigenerational relationship with art. 

Floral arrangements

The core of the exhibition lies in The Private Museum’s Osborne Hall, where 10 of Lee’s floral works fill our eyes with the vibrant hues of peonies, orchids, and camellias. Spirited yet delicate, these paintings are rendered in a realist style, with visible brushstrokes in an impasto technique. 

Orchids (1991) is exemplary of Lee’s artistic style. As if reflecting our gaze back to us, a single orchid faces us, in full bloom, its outlines sharp and defined — unlike its many counterparts in the background, which are blurred and indistinct. Its unfurled petals bear specks of rouge leading to its scarlet labellum. There is something almost scientific in the way Lee realistically observes these orchids, and yet also a tender attention to what makes a compelling picture. 

Family matters

After being enthralled by this garden of blooms, visitors can venture into other rooms of the Osborne House, and thus into other dimensions of Lee’s creative trajectory. The Caroline Verandah, for example, offers a convergence between the respective practices of Lee, Chua Mia Tee, and their daughter, the physician and photographer Dr. Chua Yang.

Here, Dr. Chua Yang’s photographs of her father and of her parents’ studio are presented alongside Chua Mia Tee’s painting My Wife (1980), which depicts Lee surrounded by her paintings and tools of her trade. In both photograph and painting, Lee and Chua Mia Tee are posed with their paintbrushes hovering in the air, as if pausing for a beat in this choreography of paint and canvas. Further evoking the physical reality of their intersecting practices, a wooden easel and a metal storage container previously used by the couple, littered with spots of paint, are also placed on the verandah.

This feeling of a “family reunion” is only heightened by another section of the exhibition, tucked away in the Sophia Gallery. Here, viewers can marvel at Chua Mia Tee’s finesse in realist portraiture, exemplified by life-sized paintings of him and his family members, including Lee. 

One nook within the Sophia Gallery, the Sophia Alcove, captures a stirring moment of an artist inheriting artistic knowledge as an heirloom from a grandparent. Here, Ernestine Chua’s Fruits (2014) is situated comfortably in the warm embrace of her grandparents’ works: Lee’s Still-life (Fruits) (2014) and Chua Mia Tee’s My Grandchild, Ernestine (2017). 

The two still-life paintings hark back to episodes in Ernestine Chua’s life, when she received art lessons from her grandparents, particularly her grandmother. While Lee’s painting indeed demonstrates her adeptness in perspectival composition and a wider spectrum of colour gradients compared to her grandchild’s work, this nook suggests more than a mere comparative reading between the two pieces. Rather, it documents a tender moment in an intergenerational story of artistic knowledge, as well as the deep-seated interweaving of art with the family’s everyday life. 

A room of one’s own?

After wandering through the different spaces of the exhibition, we find ourselves returning to Lee’s bed of flowers, enduringly bright and radiant, in the Osborne Hall. This circular journey of encountering Lee and her works in various settings soothes — albeit only marginally — my desire to view more of her works solely on their own accord.

The Art of Lee Boon Ngan allows us an opportunity to inquire further about how lesser-known artists and their oeuvres should be presented after decades of having been closely linked to more established figures. Here, the show primarily hinges on the themes of familial relations, and, more broadly, national identity to coherently situate Lee’s oeuvre alongside her husband’s practice. But perhaps ambling to and from the Osborne Hall might inspire a response or two to some curatorial food for thought: what are the implications of exhibiting artists like Lee Boon Ngan alongside their contemporaries, family members, or even alone?

___________________________________

The Art of Lee Boon Ngan: Celebrating 60 Years of Singapore through the Love of Chua Mia Tee & Lee Boon Ngan runs till 21 September 2025 at The Private Museum. Visit theprivatemuseum.org to find out more.

Header image: Lee Boon Ngan, Azaleas (2000), oil on canvas.