teacher once again. Career In 1956, an art association comprising students from local Chinese middle schools, the Singapore Chinese Middle Schools' Graduates of 1953 Arts Association (SCMSGAA), held a travelling fundraising exhibition. Raising funds for building Singapore's only Chinese-language private university, Nantah (later merged to become the present-day National University of Singapore), the association first exhibited at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Singapore, and later in Kuala Lumpur and Penang. At this travelling exhibition, Chua would present his now well-known oil painting, Epic Poem of Malaya (1955), a work that embodies the desire to inculcate a distinct Malayan nationalism in the younger generation. However, the SCMSGAA would be dissolved after the travelling exhibition due to their perceived left-leaning politics and anti-colonial sentiment, and a new group called the Equator Art Society would be registered the same year in 1956. Comprising many of the members of the SCMSGAA, the Equator Art Society was an artist group promoting the use of realist-style painting and socially-engaged practices that commented on social issues in 1950s and 60s Singapore and Malaya. Chua would be involved in the Equator Art Society's exhibitions, presenting paintings such as National Language Class (1959), for example, at the group's 1960 exhibition. By the society's de-registering on 11 January 1974, the EAS had held 6 exhibitions at locations including the Victoria Memorial Hall, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and its premises at 56 Lorong 32 in Geylang. Chua would simultaneously develop his practice through his involvement with commercial art, becoming an illustrator at the Shanghai Book Company from 1957 and later working as a designer with Grant Advertising International from 1960. Afterwards from 1965, Chua would work as a book designer and illustrator the Times Organisation's Federal Publication. In 1974, Chua held his first solo exhibition of his social realist paintings at the Rising Art Gallery, with the attention garnered leading to his decision to be a full-time artist at the age of 43. In 1979, Chua would be commissioned to create 36 sketches of members of parliament and ministers during parliamentary meetings. He would continue to be commissioned to paint political figures such as then Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew in 1991 as a May Day gift from the National Trades Union Congress, and historic events such as The Opening of the 8th Parliament for the Parliament of Singapore in 1992. Chua's 1998 portrait of Singapore's first president Yusof