In this new book Charmaine Toh, who is a former Senior Curator at the National Gallery of Singapore, looks at pictorial photography in Singapore from the 1950s to 1970s, through the optics of the local photographic societies, exhibitions and salons. Her work is based on contemporary sources, interviews and an examination of the extant archives of the photographers of the period. The period was one which Toh notes 'saw an incredible explosion of local photographic practice via camera clubs’ and a ‘vibrant photographic scene’.
This is the first study of pictorial photography from Singapore, and it is intimately linked with a narrative of Singapore’s move to independence with many camera club members being associated with the ruling People’s Action Party. The (new) Singapore Camera Club, later Photographic Society of Singapore (PSS), was formed in 1950 and that year the Singapore Art Society held its first open photographic exhibition, which was rooted in the prevailing pictorial amateur style of the period. How this evolved into a distinctive ‘Singapore pictorialism’ is explored in Toh’s wider narrative.
The book’s introduction sets out Toh’s main arguments that photography during the period took on multiple roles, acting as a symbol of democracy and modernity, staging a national identity and providing a mechanism for Singaporeans to engage with ideas of the past, present and future. These are explored in detailed in the following chapters.
She proposes that these effected a particular Singaporean experience which led to a distinct variant of pictorial photography, she calls ‘Singapore pictorialism’, to distinguish it from European pictorialism from the 1890s and modernist photography which developed in America from the 1920s. This section of the book also provides a useful contextual discussion of pictorialism and reminds us that the term has always been a fluid one with a fuzzy boundary with modernist photography.
Chapter 2 explores this concept of a distinctive Singapore approach. Toh positions it as the start of a modernist practice of photography that was predicated on the notion of a fully self-conscious and autonomous art form. This coincided with Singapore’s key nation-building years, occurring after the Japanese occupation from 1942-45, with Singapore gaining independence from the British to join Malaysia in 1963, its separation in 1965 to form an independent republic, and the associated societal upheavals.
Toh makes a strong case for a distinctive post-1950 Singaporean pictorialism rooted from the first exhibition of 1950 and the situating of photography outside of a traditional art narrative. This resulted in a more open attitude to photographic styles from a younger generation of amateurs who were self-taught, and were, arguably, democratic and open in race and class. The photographs explored beauty and positive images of people and scenes, with Singapore pictorialism, overlain by a modernist discourse as photography was co-opted to support Singapore’s efforts to be recognised as a modern society.
In chapter 3 Toh tackles one of the main criticisms of Singapore pictorialism that its subject matter was repetitive. She investigates the role of the camera clubs and salons and how new amateurs learned to make photographs and the role of salons and judges in reinforcing the selection of certain types of photography.
The photographic club she says ‘acted simultaneously as the academy, the museum and the critic, while also providing a social setting for its members.’ The competitive nature of the salon encouraged photographers to make their pictures to win awards rather than to reach new artistic standards. This was reinforced by salon jury members who came from those same clubs which encouraged entrants to produce work which would appeal to senior photographers.
In chapter 4 – Toh looks at the international dimension of Singapore pictorialism, particularly the connection to nationalism, and the close ties between the Photographic Society of Singapore, the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, and the Photographic Society of America. In 1960, the South-East Asia Photographic Society (SEAPS) organised the first International Pictorial Photography Exhibition of Singapore, and photographs from Singapore circulated more widely through international networks of club competitions and salon exhibitions.
It is clear that, like the rest of Singapore, photographers were conscious of the changing status of the nation, along with a growing sense of national identity beyond that of a British colony. Recognition of the state played a huge role in the way salon photography was presented. Furthermore, Toh contends that it was the international aspect of pictorial photography – its networks – that allowed the salon itself to represent the state and to feed into Singapore’s burgeoning sense of nation.
Singapore’s first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew observed in the catalogue of the 1963 Singapore International Salon: ‘The Society, through its regular activities for members and sponsorship of local and international photographic competitions in Singapore and participation in photographic events overseas, has helped to raise the standard and prestige of Singapore photographers’. And one might add Singapore itself.
The Singapore government also saw the potential of photography as a tool of nation-building and responded accordingly. Photography was appropriated into the state’s narrative of multiculturalism and was also seen as a tool of soft diplomacy. Government agencies organised their own competitions to emphasise Singapore’s modernity.
Chapter 5 returns the reader to a local audience. Toh positions pictorial photographs away from being historical records, arguing instead that they demonstrate the way the historical imagination of Singapore was negotiated visually. Singapore pictorialism offered its practitioners a way to ‘control’ their environment, presenting a ‘visual comfort’ during a period of social upheaval. Photographs allowed the new nation to re-imagine a new, modern Singapore during a critical period of change, to reflect on its history, and to navigate Singapore’s past, present and future within a post-colonial world.
She shows how composite photographs and shows examples of work from photographers that were ostensibly depicting the past, but were always about the present, and formed a crucial part of the new modernity. Photographs of the rural operated to simultaneously show both the past and the present, which was part of the process of re-imagining Singapore during a critical period of change. Images of ‘past’ Singapore showed the rural, images of modern Singapore focussed on scenes of building and construction.
In her conclusion brings her themes together and, additionally, notes the male-centric nature of Singaporean photography in the period with an absence of female, Indian or Malay voices, although they were probably present. Despite an avowed democracy, Singapore pictorialism remained a middle and upper-class endeavour. Her work supports and explains the concept of a distinctive Singaporean pictorialism.
Charmaine Toh’s account of Singapore pictorialism adds to a wider understanding of pictorialism outside of Europe and America, as well as showing how the movement evolved locally into the later twentieth century. Her book is an exemplar of how a study of a local photographic practice, can be set into a national cultural and political context and a wider international scene. Its publication highlights the need for a similar study looking how amateur photography in Britain evolved from the 1930s into the postwar period. It is a important contribution to photographic literature and the study of Asian photography and is highly recommended.
If there is any criticism it is that the book’s price will put it beyond the reach of individuals which is a shame as it is eminently readable, well-illustrated, and it fully deserves a wider audience.
© Dr Michael Pritchard
Imagining Singapore. Pictorial Photography from the 1950s to the 1970s
Photography in Asia series, no. 2
Charmaine Toh
Brill, 2023
ISBN 978-90-04-51341-9 (hard back)
ISBN 978-90-04-53863-4 (e-book)
€128.00
Details: https://brill.com/display/title/62135?contents=editorial-content
Illustrations: Top: Fook Leun Yan, Dawn of Spring, from Photograms of the Year, 1956, plate 82, and Lower: Yip Cheong Fun, Dance while the sun is bright, from Photograms of the Year 1960, plate 50.
