Bali 1952: Through the Lens of Liu Kang: The Trip to Java and Bali by Four Singapore Pioneering Artists

By Gretchen Liu

Singapore: National Library Board, World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd, 2025.

About the Book

In 1953, four China-born artists who had made their home in Singapore held an exhibition titled Bali. It was a sensation. The works were inspired by their sketching trip to Java and Bali in June and July the previous year. While the exhibition is recognised as a major milestone in Singapore’s art history, few details of the trip have ever been revealed. Thanks to the discovery of over 1,000 photographs taken by Liu Kang during the seven-week adventure, the chronicle of their travels can now be told. With over 250 black-and-white photographs, fleshed out by Liu Kang’s private diary, letters to his wife and other archival sources, this book tells the story of an inspiring journey that left a lasting legacy on Singapore’s art history. With an artist’s eye, Liu Kang focused his lens on landscapes, architecture and scenes of daily life that preserve a moment in time, and captured the dignity of individuals in portraits. The painterly photographs are a time capsule of Indonesian history.

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Forgotten Photographs of the 1952 Trip to Bali

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Reviews

Media: Straits Times, Tatler, Asian Review of Books, Jakarta Post, NOW Bali, ThinkChina, Plural Art Mag, Yuan

Podcast: BiblioAsia+, CNA938 Rewind

Blurbs

“Liu Kang’s photographic record of the four artists from Singapore who set out in 1952 to discover Bali is a major contribution to visual history. This beautiful book by Gretchen Liu and the National Library Board shows us how that journey inspired the flowering of the Nanyang style that is a vital part of our Southeast Asian heritage.”
Emeritus Professor Wang Gungwu, Australian National University

“This book is a major documentary source both on Bali in the 1950s and on the key artists of Singapore at that time. Meticulously researched and finely produced, Gretchen Liu’s work is important for anyone interested in Southeast Asian art and culture of that period.”
Professor Adrian Vickers, Southeast Asian Studies, University of Sydney

“It’s a refreshing change to see such a historically important visual record of Bali documented by an Asian artist and photographer during its postcolonial era. A must-have for all those who have a connection to this island.”
Rio Helmi, Indonesian photographer and writer