iNUS MuseumKent Ridge
The Evocative Head: Fragmentation as Language in Ng Eng Teng's Works
Revisits sculptor Ng Eng Teng's fascination with the human head as a fragment, from early realist portraits to later abstracted forms, ahead of the Ng Eng Teng Gallery's revamp.
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The spout of the "Head" Teapot (1962) is a mouth with what Plural Art Mag calls a "freakishly long tongue", and the handle is a ponytail. Ng Eng Teng made it at 28, and the rest of the show keeps up that "delightful mischief to the human form".
You find it in the museum's Archaeology library on the ground floor, among pottery shards, not in the Ng Eng Teng Gallery upstairs. One wall holds the realist beginnings, including the relief Miss Vogue, made in 1957 when he was 23. On either side the heads come apart: a woman's hair turns into a tree, a torso turns into a face. Of all the NUS libraries you've crammed in, this is the only one where a teapot sticks its tongue out at you.
Plural's critic called the selection "small but well-chosen". It is a prelude to a planned revamp of the main gallery, which still shows its 2016 display. Entry is free, Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm.
Editor's pick
The spout of Ng Eng Teng's 1962 "Head" Teapot is a mouth with what Plural Art Mag calls a "freakishly long tongue"; the handle is a ponytail. Plural called the selection "small but well-chosen", set among pottery shards in a library room.
Look for
The "Head" Teapot (1962)
Look for the stoneware teapot whose handle is a ponytail, whose spout is a mouth with a long tongue, and whose lid carries two bulging eyes.
Flame of the Forest
Look left of the realist wall for the oil painting of a woman in turquoise eyeliner whose hair melts into the branches of a flowering flame of the forest tree.
Torso-to-Face (1997)
On the right, a coloured-pencil drawing turns a male torso into a face: the chest becomes the eyes and the midriff the nose.
Blue Violet (1973)
A leaf-shaped ciment-fondu piece, the critic says, like a frying pan, with a small, trembling elfin face set into it.
The sketchbook pages
Blown-up pages from Ng's sketchbooks line the walls, showing him working the same heads over and over before they reached clay.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Locals Who've Seen It All
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You want a full Ng Eng Teng retrospective: this is a small selection in a library room.
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Image credits
6
- The Evocative Head: Fragmentation as Language in Ng Eng Teng's WorksMoheen Reeyad, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Fear No Power: Women Imagining OtherwiseCourtesy of National Gallery Singapore
- Singapore Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2026Courtesy of Singapore Art Museum
- Maria Taniguchi: AfterimageCourtesy of Singapore Art Museum
- NUS MuseumJoshua Rommel Hayag Vargas, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Lee Kong Chian Natural History MuseumMoheen Reeyad, CC BY-SA 4.0