The Passing of an ACSian Artist

Tow Siang Ling: Self-protraitTow Siang Ling (Class of 1940) , who gave the school three iconic artworks as a schoolboy has passed away, aged 85, on 26 September 2008.

Generations of ACSians will know the drawings and manuscript writing of “The Knight’s Prayer”, “The Man at the Gate of the Year” and “A Prayer of Strength” originally published by the school in 1939, 1940 and 1941 respectively.

Every ACS boy received a copy of Tow’s picture of a youthful knight on horseback, holding his sword aloft in prayer, printed on parchment at a chapel service in 1939. It was a gift from Yap Pheng Geck who spoke of the ideals of knighthood in his chapel talk and asked ACS boys to take up the “challenge to heroism and knightliness.”

Tow was born in China in 1923. He came to Singapore when he was three years old and was enrolled in primary 1 of ACS in 1929. Badminton was his game and he came close to being junior champion of Singapore schools. Besides playing for ACS, he was also a member of the “Devonshire Badminton Party” formed by boys living around Grange Road where he lived.

He had a natural talent in art; he was a self-taught artist. In the words of his cousin, Tow Siang Hwa, “He was phenomenal. There was no other. He was a class of his own.

A Prayer for StrengthIn 1939, at age 16, Tow Siang Ling held a one-man exhibition of 64 works in school, comprising oils, watercolours and drawings, including a pencil portrait of his neighbour at Paterson Hill, the philanthropist Lim Boon Keng. Tow’s works were consistently judged to be the best in school and interschool art competitions so much so that Richard Walker, then Art Superintendent Singapore Schools, gave Tow a government scholarship to study Art in England with the view that Tow would succeed him.

Tow did not did not go to England, but was matriculated in Raffles College just before the Japanese Occupation which disrupted his tertiary education. When World War II ended, he was already married and had begun his career as a businessman. Later, he was involved in the family bauxite mining business.

Tow did not take up his paint brushes again till he was encouraged to do so by his daughter, Eng, herself an artist, in the 1980s.

In 1985, six of Tow’s works were included in a major exhibition of historical views of Singapore from the 1800s to 1941 organized by Arbour Fine Arts. The exhibition catalogue acknowledged Tow as “one of the few Singaporeans who made pictorial records of his environment in the 1930s and early 40s.”

Tow spent the last years of his life designing hundreds of monograms for family and friends. He is survived by four sons: Theow-Huang, Thomas, Allan and Peter (all ACSians) and three daughters, Eng, Julia and Ping.

Goh Eck Kheng

The Man at the Gate of the Year

A Knight's Prayer


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