Table of content:

• Foreword
• Introductory
• Chapters Overview
• Tropical Tapestry
  • The “Tropical” and Sources of Modern Art
  • Early Impressions of Singapore and the Straits Settlements
  • Portraiture and Photography
  • Emergence of the Artist
  • Artistic Activities before the War
  • Towards Nanyang Art
• Nanyang Reverie
  • Introduction
  • Modern Perspectives: East Meets West
  • Spirit of Experimentation in Nanyang Art
  • The Idea of the “Local” in Nanyang Art
  • Representations of Southeast Asian Landscape in Nanyang Art
  • Nanyang Art and Southeast Asian Material Culture
  • Conclusion
• The Real against the New: Social Realism and Abstraction
  • Real Concerns: Social Realism as an Artistic Practice
  • Realism: History Painting from Below
  • Portraiture: Portraying the People
  • Imprints of Everyday Life: The Woodcut Movement
  • Realism across the Boundaries of Medium
  • New Language: Different Paths to Modernity
  • The Great Debate: The Real and the New
  • Conclusion: Different Modes of Representing the Real and the New
• Tradition Unfettered: The Story of Singapore Ink
  • Transferring Tradition
  • Modern Transformations
  • Conclusion
• Shifting Grounds
  • Early Stirrings
  • Experimental Colony
  • Other Views
  • After Performance
  • Global Peculiar
• Image Plates
• Glossary