Rare LKY bust at heart of show exploring Singapore identity

It begins, like so many Singapore stories, with former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. In 2014, a phone call came from London for art space The Culture Story's co-founder Chong Huai Seng.

- Clement Yong

The widow of British sculptor Sydney Harpley was housekeeping. Would he be interested in acquiring the artist's proof - an artist prototype - of a rare bust of Mr Lee, made with his permission in 1982?

"It was like the Holy Grail of collecting," says Mr Chong, 74, still visibly emotional from this stroke of luck. He compares it to discovering a missing van Gogh - at which point, his daughter Ning Chong, 40, goads him into repeating his moniker for the prized item: "The Mona Lisa of Singapore."

The 70cm-tall melancholic likeness - the artist's proof of the only bust Mr Lee was ever persuaded to pose for in his lifetime - is the fount of a mammoth new show at Artspace@Helutrans in Tanjong Pagar Distripark.

Artist's Proof: Singapore At 60, which opens on July 13, encompasses 95 works by more than 50 mostly Singaporean artists. Mr Chong terms it his "legacy project" 10 years in the making.

In the past two years, he has found himself unwittingly sourcing for works to plug the gaps in the amorphous narrative.

"This one show basically took up seven years of our budget, so you can imagine the cost. But there's only one opportunity to do a 60th-anniversary show, and I thought we should spare no expense, either time, money or resource."