Lim Hak Tai (林学大) (b. 28 May 1893, Xiamen, Fujian, China–d. 14 February 1963, Singapore) was one of Singapore’s pioneer artists and art educators. He was one of the main proponents of the Nanyang style of art in terms of technique and subject matter. He was also ...

William Lim Siew Wai (b. 19 July 1932, Hong Kong–) is an architect, urban theorist and activist. The Singapore citizen has been involved in the design of many iconic buildings in the country, including the former Singapore Conference Hall and Trade Union House ...

Lee Peng Boon (b. 1956, Singapore–), popularly known as Dick Lee, is one of Singapore’s best-known personalities in the arts scene. Besides his creative output as a musician, playwright and designer, Lee is also involved in events management and advertising. In ...

Foo Tee Jun (b. 15 December 1935, Singapore–) is a highly regarded and artistically distinguished salon photographer. His involvement with professional photography began in 1963. Over the years, Foo perfected his skills and experimented with various darkroom techniques ...

Rufino Soliano (b. 10 January 1932, Singapore–22 April 2017, Singapore) was an accomplished musician, composer and conductor. He was the former head of the now-defunct Singapore Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra. Soliano had been active in the local music scene ...

Tanya Chua (蔡健雅) (b. 28 January 1975, Singapore–) is a critically acclaimed Singapore Mandopop singer-songwriter who emerged on the music scene in the 1990s. Effectively bilingual in both English and Mandarin, Tanya gained popular success mainly in Taiwan and has ...

Jacintha Abisheganaden (b. 3 October 1957, Singapore–) is an accomplished Singapore actress, entertainer and jazz singer. The daughter of musician and Cultural Medallion recipient Alex Abisheganaden, Jacintha’s early training in music stood her in good stead for ...

Folk singer-songwriter Art Fazil is often regarded as Singapore’s Bob Dylan. Like Dylan, he is known for singing socially conscious songs accompanied by the acoustic guitar and harmonica. Art writes and sings both Malay and English songs, and has written many songs ...

Anita Sarawak (b. 23 March 1952, Singapore–) is a professional entertainer known for her showmanship, powerful vocals and energetic performances. A versatile and talented artiste, Anita has performed in film, television and on stage. She is one of the first Asian ...

Goh Beng Kwan (b. 26 December 1937, Medan, Sumatra, Indonesia–) is a pioneer Singapore modern artist known for his distinctive approach to abstraction and collage, as seen from his artworks. For his contributions to the local art scene, Goh was awarded the Cultural ...

Chua Mia Tee (b. 25 November 1931, Shantou, Guangdong, China–) is one of Singapore’s foremost realist painters. He is best known for his oil paintings that depict Singapore’s vanishing traditional urban landscape. He is also a much sought-after portrait artist ...

Mohammed Saffri Bin Abdul Manaf (b. 3 November 1952, Singapore–) is a scriptwriter, actor, director and comedian. Much of his work has been aired on the local Malay television and radio. A bangsawan (Malay opera) enthusiast, M. Saffri has also written, acted in ...

Chen Wen Hsi (b. 9 September 1906, Guangdong, China–d. 17 December 1991, Singapore) was one of Singapore’s pioneer artists. A prolific painter who worked in a range of styles, Chen won acclaim for combining Western art with Chinese brush strokes in his paintings. ...

P. Krishnan (b. 1932, Johor, Malaya–), also known as Puthumaithasan, is regarded as one of Singapore’s Tamil literary pioneers. He is a prolific short-story writer, playwright, poet and radio broadcaster, with an oeuvre comprising more than 40 stories, 100 essays ...

Wu Peng Seng (b. 1915, Shantou, China–d. 23 May 2006, Singapore), also known as Goh Peng Seng, was a pioneer photographer in Singapore known for his landscape photography and photographic travelogues. Wu was involved in photography for more than half a decade, ...

Yeh Tsung (b. 17 May 1950, Shanghai, China–), better known as Tsung Yeh, has been the music director of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) since 2002. Currently also the music director of the South Bend Symphony Orchestra in the United States (US), Yeh is the ...

Juliana Yasin (b. 1970, Singapore–d. 27 August 2014, Singapore) was a multidisciplinary artist whose mediums of choice include painting, installation, video and performance art. Her works deal with themes such as movement, identity, displacement, freedom and socio-political ...

Choy Sivanandan (b. 1947, Singapore–4 March 2018, Perth, Australia), better known as Siva Choy, was a musician, humourist and writer. While he was famous for the popular 1991 comedy album Why U So Like Dat?, the multi-instrumentalist was also a pioneer of blues ...

Alfian bin Sa’at (b. 18 July 1977, Singapore–), commonly known as Alfian Sa’at, is a prominent English- and Malay-language playwright, poet and short-story writer in Singapore and Malaysia. Known for his politically charged works, Alfian is notable for being the ...

Zubir Said (b. 22 July 1907, Bukittinggi, Minangkabau, Sumatra, Indonesia–d. 16 November 1987, Singapore), also affectionately known as Pak Zubir (pak means “father” in Malay) or Mr Mari Kita (the first two words of the Singapore national anthem), was the composer ...