Films on Artmaking in Southeast Asia: Woodcut

Cultural Medallion recipient Lim Yew Kuan introduces us to the art of woodcut, a form of relief printmaking, by demonstrating how a work is taken from sketch to print. The process begins with tracing the sketch on transfer paper to facilitate the crucial next step: carving the outlines of the drawing on the wooden block. Ink is then rolled onto the woodblock’s surface before the image is printed on paper. While the technique of woodcut printmaking originated in China, woodcut prints have been frequently reproduced in publications across Southeast Asia, where artists like Lim have continued and developed the artform. The high contrast images produced by woodblocks make the prints powerful modes for conveying ideas to a mass audience.
About the Artist
Lim Yew Kuan (b. 1928, China) is one of Singapore’s most prominent second-generation artists. He arrived in Singapore during World War II to join his father Lim Hak Tai, the founding principal of Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA). In 1950, Lim graduated from NAFA and co-founded the Equator Art Society as its first president in 1956. Between 1958 to 1962, he furthered his studies at the Chelsea School of Art in London. When his father passed away, Lim served as NAFA’s second principal from 1963 to 1979, and continued to teach there until his retirement in 1994. In 2011, he received the Cultural Medallion for his significant contributions to the visual arts in Singapore. His body of work reflects a strong social consciousness, as evidenced in his social realist prints, created in in response to the turbulent conditions faced by Singapore and Malaya in the post-war years of the 1950s and 1960s.
Learn about another work by Lim Yew Kuan, Seaside, here: collections.na...