Fan Chang Tien
BORN: 1907
HOMETOWN: JIEYANG, CHINA
Fan Chang Tien (范昌乾) was born in 1907 in Jieyang, China. He graduated from the Xinhua Academy of Fine Arts and the Changming Art Academy, both in Shanghai, under the tutelage of Shanghai School Haipai (海派) masters such as Wang Geyi, Wang Zhen (Yiting), Pan Tianshou, and Zhu Wenyun. This allowed Fan to draw a direct lineage to the great Haipai master Wu Changshuo, who modernised literati ink paintings for the cosmopolitan inhabitants of Shanghai.
Fan migrated to Bangkok, Thailand to teach in 1947, then to Singapore in 1956, with the Chinese Civil War preventing his return to China. Establishing himself in a studio in Balestier Road, Fan taught ink painting free of charge. Many of his students were involved in the Hwa Han Art Society, established in 1973, with Fan as the head advisor.
Being part of the Teochew intellectual community led Fan to emphasise the literati aspects of the Haipai tradition, most importantly in the assemblage of meanings provided within a piece of artwork through the four components of poetry, calligraphy, painting, and seal-carving. In particular, his self-composed poems, making full use of the metaphorical meanings of flora and fauna entrenched in Chinese literary culture, set him apart from other ink painters in Singapore. It is also within this textuality that Fan made sense of his Nanyang environs.
Some of his notable students include Nai Swee Leng, Lim Kay Hiong, Tan Oe Pang, Henri Chen Kezhan, Lim Cher Eng, and Chua Ek Kay.