Chia Wai Hon was a Singapore artist, art educator and art critic. He taught at the Teachers' Training College, LASALLE College of the Arts and the Ministry of Education, and served on the committees of the Shell Discovery Art Exhibition initiative and the Arts Resource Panel by the National Arts Council. Chia championed the importance of art to be included in the Singapore school curriculum and his writings have been collated in the book Bits and Pieces: Writings on Art (2002).

Born on 23 December 1927 in Singapore, Chia Wai Hon received his early education at Gan Eng Seng School and Raffles Institution before attending Teachers' Training College in 1951. After a three-year stint as a teacher, he went on to attain a National Diploma in Design and Painting from the Chelsea School of Art in London, UK and an Art Teacher’s Certificate from the University of London, UK, in 1959 and 1961 respectively before returning to Singapore. He later obtained a Master of Arts at the University of Michigan, US.

For Chia, his pursuit of art began after the end of World War II in 1945. He joined a small group of artists which included pioneer Singapore watercolourist Lim Cheng Hoe, school principal T. Y. Choy, Chew Cheng Toh and occasionally Dr Kwan Sai Kheong. They would head out on Sundays to paint at various locations around Singapore. The group's favourite locations were the Singapore River, the Malay kampongs in Bedok and Pasir Panjang, and Chinatown.

Like a few of his peers who had also received an art education overseas, Chia returned to Singapore with an interest in formal abstraction. In an interview for a series of talks that he gave in 1979, he said: "Art is not just taking nature onto a canvas. It is a search for the inner truth, a spiritual quality…You begin to be interested in shapes, textures, lines, not as a means to an end but as an end in itself. It can be just a feel for colours that triggers the creative urge in you." Whether in painting or drawing—a medium he favoured—his abstract works contained sensitive interactions of shapes, forms, colours and textures.

Chia's artistic practice extended into nude works in the late ’80s. Fellow artists S. Namasivayam and Sim Tong Khern began organising life sessions at the college, on Saturdays. The three artists Namasivayam, Sim and Chia led by Joseph McNally, founded Group 90, an informal arts group dedicated to the study and interpretation of the human nude form. The group went on to hold their first exhibition Figurama at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts gallery in 1991.

Besides his artistic practice, Chia also embarked on a significant career as an arts educator and critic when he returned from the UK. He started working as an art lecturer at the Teachers' Training College in 1961. He held this full-time position for 26 years, of which he served five years as head of the School of Curriculum Studies, and eight years as the head of the Art Education Department. He retired in 1987, but never stopped his involvement in art education completely, continuing to serve as a part-time lecturer and writer at the College, now named Institute of Education. He also went on to become a part-time lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts and the Ministry of Education.

At the same time, Chia also became one of the early art critics in Singapore. He broadcasted art commentaries on Radio Singapore in the ’70s and wrote art reviews for newspapers in the ’80s, offering his views on both the arts and art education in Singapore. His art writings were extensive and covered the developments in the Singapore art scene through the decades, and Chia became one the island’s most notable art writers.

Throughout his career in art criticism and education, Chia's push for the placing of more importance on the subject of Art in Singapore's school curriculum was incessant. He believed that art had a supportive role and link with other subjects in the school curriculum, and that it was essential for the all-round development of a young student. He wrote regularly on the matter, and championed his case through talks and seminars. Chia's selected writings over a 40-year span were collated into a book, edited by art historian T. K. Sabapathy, entitled Bits and Pieces: Writings on Art (2002).

Chia also contributed his time to a number of committees and boards. He joined the Singapore Art Society in 1962, serving as its secretary for four years and exhibiting regularly at the society's annual exhibitions. He went on to become a committee member and judge of Shell Discovery Art Exhibition, an initiative in the ’80s to promote young artists. He also served as a member in the Advisory Committee for Public Sculpture by the Ministry of National Development and as a member of the Arts Resource Panel by the National Arts Council.

He passed away at the age of 95 on 23 January 2023.