The latest exhibition at the National Gallery of Singapore looks at the art history of Paris from an Asian perspective, focusing on a group of individual artists from such countries as Vietnam, Japan, India, and China to retell the Asian experience in France during the 1920s to 1940s. It explores how the Asian artists lived, worked, and exhibited in Paris during this dynamic period of modern art history, moving beyond the idea of Paris as an art world centre by exploring this ‘other’ perspective. This peak period in the artistic migration in the city’s life offers an original and nuanced picture of Paris as a site for dynamic creativity, where the cross-cultural exchange of aesthetics brought new ideas to society.
The show transports the audience to an era when Paris was at the height of modernity. The city was a mecca for many artists, especially during the 1920s. Artists, architects, writers, and performers connected in the cafés of the Left Bank, with Montparnasse especially attracting creatives and bohemians of the time, who were intent on rejecting the traditional norms and values. Foreigners from around the world imbued fresh influences into art, music, and dance.
The Influence of Art Deco
The styles of the earlier Art Nouveau and the emerging Art Deco style were also influencing everything from fashion and furniture to advertising, often drawing on Asian inspirations. Asian artists joined this group of emerging artists seeking new inspiration and brought their own distinctive heritages to Paris to engage with the city’s modern art world. At the same time, Paris was also the seat of a colonial empire, which had troubling implications and raised complex questions for artists from the colonies. It was a critical period in the narrative of modernism and modern art’s relationship to ‘the Other.’
This dynamic cultural hub attracted leading Asian artists such as Foujita Tsuguharu (1886-1968), Georgette Chen (1906-1993), Le Pho (1907-2001), Liu Kang (1911-2004), Hanamaka Katsu (1895-1952), Xu Beihong (1895-1953), and Sanyu (1907-1966), who forged new modes of expression, blending their own cultural histories with the modernities of Paris. As they encountered people from different backgrounds – the cultural ‘others’ – they themselves were often viewed as outsiders (‘others’), fuelling a vibrant exchange of aesthetics and ideas, shaping their artistic identities in profound ways.
The exhibition offers a nuanced exploration of these Asian artists’ experiences at the time, including new research on the contribution of Asian artists and artisans to Art Deco, their presence at major exhibitions and salons in Paris, and the impact of these colonial networks and exhibition platforms on modern artists from Southeast Asia. Artists claimed their space within Paris’ artistic landscape, from the halls of the École des Beaux-Arts to the studios of Académie de la Grande Chaumière, at the same time expanding their networks in the quarter of Montparnasse, a popular district for artists’ cafés, studios, and informal art schools. Asian artists were also active in the field of the decorative arts during this period, with Japanese designers and artisans designing for the new market and demand for luxury decorative arts. In this area, it was the Vietnamese workers who provided much of the labour for the newly popular lacquer ware and furniture on sale to the public.
Navigating between Modernity and Tradition
Amid this cultural vibrancy, artists navigated the tension between modernity and tradition against the backdrop of a global economic depression, colonialism, and the looming threat of war. It was in this dynamic environment that Asian artists found themselves in a serious and thoughtful re-engagement with their own cultures and identities as ‘the other’, resulting in an exchange of ideas and creativity.
Part of the exhibition looks at the complex networks of migrant artists in Paris, uncovering how these connections enabled artistic developments and career progression. By examining the reception of Asian art within national, cultural, and colonial contexts in Paris, the show also reveals how artists navigated the expectations of the European audience while simultaneously re-engaging with their own cultural identities. A particular focus is on the realm of the decorative arts, which served as an initial point of cultural exchange, highlighting the collaborations between Asian artisans and French designers that mutually shaped aesthetic sensibilities and artistic practices during this dynamic period.
Foujita Tsuguharu
Artists in the exhibition include Foujita Tsuguharu, who was born in Tokyo but moved to Paris in 1913 to pursue his art studies. A distinctive figure of the avant-garde, he became a well-known figure in the Parisian bohemian art world, associating with Western artists such as Picasso and Modigliani. Foujita’s style combined Western and Japanese artistic traditions, using traditional Japanese ink techniques with modern French aesthetics of the time to create works with a variety of subject matter from café scenes, nudes, self-portraits, and his famous cats.
Born in Hanoi, Le Pho first studied at the Vietnam University of Fine Arts and whilst there gained a scholarship that allowed him to enrol in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1932 to become part of the first generation of Vietnamese artists to study in Paris. His works include stylised depictions of nudes, women in traditional dress of ao dai, landscapes, and floral still lifes Liu Kang was born in China, but eventually became a Singaporean citizen. After graduating from the Xinhua Arts Academy in Shanghai, the moved to Paris to study Western art in 1929. His stay in Paris had a significant influence on his career, where he attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Montparnasse and studied Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Fauvist styles, becoming a frequent visitor to the city’s art museums and galleries. This experience greatly influenced his early painting style during his Paris years.
Sanyu, known for his nude studies and flower still lifes, remains popular among collectors today. Born into a wealthy family in Sichuan, China, he first learned to paint with his father. He first travelled to Japan in 1919, but in 1921, after learning about the government-sponsored programme at home, he applied and was awarded a grant to study in Paris with the support of his brother. He also attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Unlike his fellow Chinese artists, Sanyu did not return to his home country after completing his studies but chose instead to remain in Paris. He continued to experiment with reinterpretations of traditional Chinese art, developing a unique, cross-cultural aesthetic in his work.
Female Artists in the Exhibition
Two female artists in the exhibition are Georgette Chen and Amrita Sher-Gil. Amrita Sher-Gil (1913-1941) is an often-overlooked artist, but in her short life (she died in India, now Pakistan, at the age of 28), she found recognition as an avant-garde artist and pioneer of modern Indian art. The daughter of an Indian aristocrat and his Hungarian wife, she led an extraordinary life, spending the first years of her childhood in Hungary until the end of the First World War. When the family returned to India from 1921 to 1929, Amrita’s parents hired a private tutor to teach her art, with her drawings anchored in a European tradition in terms of landscape and people. In order to expose Amrita to the best possible academic art training, the family moved to Paris in 1929. At just sixteen, she was admitted to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where she was a diligent student whilst discovering Paris’s ‘Bohemian’ life. She returned to India and moved to Lahore with her husband shortly before she died in 1941.
The Singaporean artist Georgette Chen travelled frequently with her father, an international antiques dealer, as a child, living between China and France, as well as attending school in the US. She studied in Paris in 1927-31, with her work exhibited in Les Femmes Artistes d’Europe Exposent at Musée du Jeu de Paume and the Salon d’Automne in the 1930s. On her return to Asia, she eventually settled in Singapore after the Second World War and became involved in the movement that promoted the Nanyang style, which merged European painting techniques with Southeast Asian inspiration, becoming a key figure in the development of modern art in Singapore. She is known for painting still lifes featuring baskets of Asian fruits, putting commonplace objects into an Asian context, as well as portraits (she often painted her husband Eugene Chen (a Chinese Trinidadian lawyer/politician, whom she married in 1930).
Apart from looking at the influence of the Paris art scene on this group of Asian artists, the exhibition also explores colonial propaganda in Paris and the response by migrant artists from the colonies, who were forced to confront complex dynamics as they participated in events such as the 1931 Exposition Coloniale Internationale. Vietnamese artists such as Le Pho and Vu Cao Dam strategically navigated colonial spectacles in the context of special salons and international expositions to assert their identities as artists while gaining recognition internationally.
In addition, the exhibition examines the reception of Asian art within national, cultural, and colonial contexts in Paris. It presents new research on the contributions of Asian artists and artisans to the Art Deco movement, their participation in significant exhibitions and salons, and the impact of colonial networks and exhibition platforms on modern artists from Asia. This is in line with National Gallery Singapore’s interest in examining Southeast Asian perspectives and narratives in global art histories, as the leading institution in Southeast Asian and Singaporean modern and contemporary art. While National Gallery Singapore’s collection and long-term exhibitions focus on the specific modernities of our region, City of Others also allows us to extend this regional perspective into a broader global history of modern art.
The exhibition features more than 200 artworks, including paintings, sculptures, lacquerware, and decorative art. There is a further collection of 200 archives and historical images available, with many of these items presented for the first time in Singapore.
From 2 April to 17 August, 2025, National Gallery Singapore, Singapore.
A joint symposium on this subject organised by the National Gallery Singapore and Musée Cernuschi was held in Paris in February 2025. An expanded symposium on Paris as a ‘City of Others’ will be held from 16 to 17 August 2025 in Singapore
