Personal Faces of Georgette Chen
by Melisa Leong
While Georgette Chen is well known as an artist, few may understand how she was like as a close friend and a relative. After she passed away in 1993, one of her friends gathered up her personal correspondence and donated them to the Singapore Art Museum (SAM). Currently interning with SAM, I have the rare opportunity to personally examine her letters, some of which date back as far as 1949. After getting past the old-fashioned cursive handwriting, I now know Georgette Chen from a much more personal perspective.
It is amazing that Georgette Chen kept almost every single correspondence she received – from greeting cards to letters and even bank investment statements and empty envelopes. One gem I found was a Hari Raya greeting card signed personally by Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first Prime Minister of Malaysia.
The sheer volume of letters and greeting cards in Georgette Chen’s possession attests to her congeniality and amiability. She received letters from friends and relatives from all over the globe, from New York to California to China to Australia. When she was hospitalized for an arthritis problem, her nieces and nephews sent her colourfully drawn and affectionately written greeting cards wishing her a speedy recovery.
Letters from friends and relatives were evidently extremely important to Georgette Chen as she made carbon copies of almost every letter she sent out. Almost all the letters she received were replied to promptly as well. She adhered strictly to the standard letter-writing etiquette, such as placing her Siglap Plain address at the top of every letter and signing off with greetings like ‘yours affectionately’.
Not being able to write or receive letters was also clearly distressing. In a letter to her friend Jessie Bloodworth dated January 14th, 1964, Georgette bemoaned the theft of her typewriter by a burglar and expressed her surprise at finding that some ‘stamp-crazy boys’ had been stealing her overseas mail.
Georgette Chen, as a relative, was also very generous as can be seen from her relationship with a friend called Yoeh Foong. Knowing that the economic situation in China during the 1970s was rather unstable, Georgette remitted money and parcels of food items such as butter, cakes, sugar, sausages and lard to Yoeh Foong who lived in Shanghai. She even requested Yoeh Foong to send a mould of her mouth so that she could help make a pair of dentures!
Georgette Chen was also very much like ordinary Singaporeans, especially concerning her personal appearance. Looking good, it seems, did not only apply to her artwork. From her correspondence with friends Eileen Torland and Sura Kim, it is clear that she was a fan of hair dye, especially the ‘Technique’ brand dark brown range and used some form of hair medicine. In a few letters, she requested them to send over bottles of the hair dye over from the United States. On the other hand, her friend Dot asked in a February 3, 1967 if Georgette needed more hair conditioner.
Although Georgette Chen was born overseas, Singapore had clearly become her adopted home as observed in her writings. Political developments in Singapore and the region, which at times affected her artistic career, featured fairly frequently in her letters, especially those between her, a friend called Pat and a cousin. For example, due to the split between Malaysia and Singapore, she had to postpone an art exhibition that was supposed to be opened by the Tunku.
Georgette Chen’s embracement of Singapore as her home was exemplified by her learning of the Malay language, the lingua franca of society back in the sixties and seventies. Her enthusiasm is evident in her letters to her nieces Polly and Dorothy and her participation in the August 1962 Malay examinations. She even adopted a Malay name – Chendana, which cleverly incorporates her Chinese surname Chen. The name ‘Chendana’ was used in an October 17th, 1967 to Pat regarding, quite appropriately, her meeting with the Tunku.
Georgette Chen probably kept all those letters and greeting cards for memories’ sake. Presently, they have become a wealthy source of material curators, art historians and interns like me. While I do not claim to be an authority on Georgette Chen, I have chosen to write on what I find most interesting about her. So while most Singaporeans may know Georgette Chen as an artist, I now know her as a fan of hair dye, doting auntie, loyal friend and letter-writing addict!
The author is an honours student majoring in history at the National University of Singapore. From May to August 2007, she is an intern at the Singapore Art Museum. Her interests are mainly in the history of China and Japan, but Singapore art history is become increasingly intriguing as she sieves through more and more letters belonging to artists.
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