Wee Beng Chong is a celebrated multidisciplinary artist, sculptor and art educator. A doyen of both Western and Chinese art forms, he has been a mentor and advisor to many art associations in Singapore, co-founding the Modern Art Society Singapore in 1964. He served as head of the Fine Art Department of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts for almost a decade and currently serves as Senior Teaching Fellow at the academy. In 1979, he received the first Cultural Medallion for art for his contributions to visual arts in Singapore.

Born in 1938 in Singapore, Wee Beng Chong showed a keen interest in drawing from a young age. As a young boy, he would use a piece of charcoal—obtained from a charcoal seller opposite his home—to draw on the ground outside his home, usually covering the entire area with his drawings and suffering the ire of his upstairs neighbour who would pour water on him. But he never stopped.

At the age of 11, he started learning how to draw portraits from a teacher, Ee Chiat Teck. After three years of lessons, Wee began to explore Chinese seal carving. Feeling that desire to pursue his passion for art, he enrolled at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in 1955, beginning his formal art education. There, he studied under pioneering Singapore artists such as Cheong Soo Pieng, Chen Wen Hsi, Chen Chong Swee, See Hiang Tuo and Lim Hak Tai.

He graduated in 1958 and held his first solo exhibition of Chinese calligraphy and seal carvings in 1961. A prolific artist, Wee and went on to hold three more solo exhibitions in the next two years. In 1964, he co-founded the Modern Art Society Singapore with fellow artists including Ho Ho Ying and Tay Chee Toh.

But Wee felt unsatisfied with his work and decided to further his art education. With the money earned from painting the portrait of a successful businessman, he bought a ticket to sail to Paris to enrol at the L’Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts. There, the richness and vibrancy of art inspired and stimulated his artistic sensibilities. In the five years at the school, he held solo exhibitions of his work in France, Switzerland and Germany, receiving an International Prize for Modern Art in France. To support himself overseas, he worked part-time in restaurants as a dishwasher and cook.

Graduating from the L’Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts, Wee returned to Singapore in 1968 where he continued his significant career as a multidisciplinary artist and became a private art educator who eventually returned to the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts to join its faculty in 1981. The next year, he became the head of the academy’s Fine Art Department, a position he served for eight years.

Throughout his artistic career, Wee embraced a diverse range of technique and materials, including calligraphy and seal carving, printmaking, bronze, mixed media sculpture, and oil and Chinese ink paintings. Influenced by the age-old traditions of Chinese scholarly art, he is known for his unconventional adaptations, from modernist formalism to hybrid forms, and for employing his innovative style in contemporary practice.

An important figure in the development of visual arts in Singapore, Wee has also accomplished much in his efforts to challenge, encourage and promote Singapore artists. Besides the Modern Art Society Singapore, he also founded the Contemporary Print Making Association of Singapore, the Lanting Art Society, Singapore, and co-founded the Shicheng Calligraphy & Seal-Carving Society. He also served as advisor to the Singapore Sculpture Society and was involved in the establishment of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Alumni Association.

In addition to his solo exhibitions, Wee also participated in over twenty group exhibitions in countries such as Australia, China, Japan, Korea, and the UK, receiving numerous Singapore and international accolades for his artistic excellence. Among his awards, he received the Pingat Angkatan Pelukis Aneka Daya from the Association of Artists of Various Resources in 1974 and the Gold Medallion Award from The Chinese Calligraphy Society of Singapore in 2000. In 1979, he became the first recipient of the Cultural Medallion for art for his contributions to visual arts in Singapore.

Today, Wee is a Senior Teaching Fellow at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. His own biggest critic, he continues to persevere to create work that is worthy of his own high standards.