Lim Hak Tai was a Singapore pioneer artist, the initiator of the Nanyang style of art and Founding Principal of Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. An artist-educator who was born in Xiamen, China, he came to Singapore in 1936 to set up the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. For 25 years until his death in 1963, he dedicated himself to the school and its students, enduring many trials in the service of arts education. He created paintings that married Western and Chinese approaches with Singapore content and subjects, and encouraged his peers and students—mostly migrants from China—to create their own responses to their new Southeast Asian environment, giving rise to the Nanyang style.

Lim Hak Tai was born in 1893 in Xiamen, Fujian Province, China. He was an art educator who taught at No. 13 High School in Fujian (Siming High School) from 1915 to 1917 and various Jimei schools from 1918 to 1929. He also co-founded and taught at the Xiamen Academy of Fine Arts in 1923 with Chinese artist Huang Suibi and Yang Gengtang.

In 1936 just before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war, Lim accepted educator-philanthropist Tan Kah Kee’s invitation to teach art and mathematics at Chinese High School in Singapore. While here, he connected with other Chinese immigrant artists and raised the possibility of establishing an arts school in Singapore. Some were alumni of art institutions in Shanghai and Xiamen and had banded together in 1935 to form Singapore’s first art organisation, the Society of Chinese Artists.

With the encouragement of his contemporaries and the financial support of Tan See Siang—a Jimei School alumni and philanthropist Tan Kah Kee’s son—the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) was established in 1937. There were already a few private art studios and schools that predated NAFA, but NAFA was the first art school with a diploma course in art education and would come to be the only pre-war art school to have survived the Second World War.

With his experience as an arts educator, Lim was appointed as Founding Principal. He created a curriculum similar to that of his Xiamen Academy of Fine Arts, offering courses in Western art, sculpture and applied arts. In 1937, NAFA commenced classes in rented premises at 167 Geylang Road with only 14 students and four teachers. In 1938 NAFA moved to larger premises at 93 Serangoon Road, which had space for a hostel for teachers and female students. In 1940, four students of the academy became NAFA's first batch of graduates. Besides his duties as principal and Dean of studies, Lim also taught art theory, watercolour and oil painting, and even wrote the lyrics to the school’s anthem.

However, due to inadequate financial support and low student numbers, the school soon became financially strapped and struggled to pay its teachers. But the teachers, dedicated in their passion, stayed on at NAFA and supplemented their income by teaching part-time at secondary schools. Already living modestly, Lim taught at Chinese High School for extra income and began to cover NAFA’s expenses out of his own pocket. Shortly after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on 7 July 1937 in China, Xiamen fell to the Japanese on 13 May 1938, forcing Lim’s family to flee to Singapore. Tragically, his wife passed away while in transit in Hong Kong. A grief-stricken Lim had then resolved to make a success out of his art school.

In 1942, during the Second World War, Singapore fell to the Japanese, and the school had to be closed. Lim stopped working, kept a low profile and joined the local anti-war effort. During the Japanese Occupation, Lim’s eldest son was taken away by the Japanese secret police one night and never returned. The war ran its course and the Japanese army surrendered in 1945, and Lim reopened NAFA the following year in a new location at 49 St. Thomas Walk.

In China, the end of the war saw the beginnings of the Cultural Revolution. From 1946, Singapore received a fresh wave of Chinese migrants arriving on its shores, including several artists who would play significant roles in Singapore’s artistic development. Like Lim, most had been schooled in Western and Chinese art and were established artists. The college saw additions to its teaching staff, including Cheong Soo Pieng who had been Lim’s student at the Xiamen Academy, Chen Wen Hsi, Chen Chong Swee and Georgette Chen.

In the ’50s, Lim applied to the Ministry of Education for funding but NAFA was not recognised as a college, and received the same amount of funding as that given to primary schools. To make matters worse, the college’s graduation certificates were not recognised in Singapore and Malaysia. These contributed to dwindling student numbers. For many years, Lim and his staff survived on meagre salaries and threadbare facilities. Fortunately, the school’s years of struggle yielded great intangible reward. The shared hardships bred a great loyalty to and enduring affection for the school and its long-suffering principal, who received regular visits from school alumni. Years later, when NAFA's survival was threatened by the recession in 1973, the alumni would come to its aid, keeping the school going. Through the decades, the school’s staff remained staunchly loyal.

Lim’s artistic vision in the early years of NAFA birthed a new approach to art. A sensitive observer of his new home environment, Lim created many paintings that married Western and Chinese approaches with Singapore content and subjects. Many of his works would come to be irreparably damaged by water years later. But those that survived reveal an artist who sought to portray compelling images of the changing times in Singapore with feeling and purpose.

As an educator, he urged his peers and students—mostly migrants from China—to embark on artistic explorations of Singapore and the region. He encouraged them to create their own responses to their Southeast Asian environment and develop their local cultural sensibilities as Chinese migrants, giving rise to the Nanyang school of painting. Most famously in 1953, he persuaded artist-teachers Cheong Soo Pieng, Chen Wen Hsi, Chen Chong Swee and Liu Kang to seek inspiration from an excursion to Bali, resulting in works lauded today for their rich expressions of the Nanyang experience.

In 1962, Lim received the Sijil Kemuliaan (Certificate of Honours) from the Singapore government in recognition of his contributions to art in Singapore. He headed a still-struggling Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts until 1963 when he passed away. He was succeeded by his son, Lim Yew Kuan.

Since then, the school has become a recognised educational institution and has grown to become one of the region’s top art institutions. In 2009, as part of NAFA's 70th anniversary celebration and in honour of Founding Principal, Lim Hak Tai, the Academy unveiled a portrait sculpture by his son, Lim Yew Kuan, in conjunction with an exhibition and naming of a gallery—the Lim Hak Tai Gallery.