Tan Puay Hock (courtesy name Hong An) is a retired educator, as well as a freelance writer and editor. He is a Singaporean citizen with ancestral roots in Chenghai, Guangdong, China. He was a part-time lecturer at the Chinese department of Singapore University of Social Sciences in 2012.
Puay Hook studied calligraphy painting and seal carving under the tutelage of Singapore’s first generation jinshi calligrapher and painter, See Hang To.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Literature and History from the University of East Asia, Macau (now University of Macau) and a Master of Arts in Chinese Studies from the National University of Singapore.
Puay Hock’s calligraphy works have often been selected for both local and international exhibitions, including, multiple editions of Singapore’s National Day Art Exhibition.
In 1985, his works were selected for an international calligraphy exhibition in Zhengzhou, China, organized by the Chinese Calligraphy Society.
In 2008, he participated in the Singapore Teochew Artists Calligraphy and Painting Exhibition in Shantou.
In 2021, he contributed to Idle Clouds Upon Refection Selected Poems of Pan Shou in Nanyin, a project on Chinese Calligraphy and Seal Carving curated by the Temengong Artists-in-Residence.
His seal-carvings were selected for the 1984 inaugural International Seal-Carving Art Exhibition in Seoul, South Korea, and were subsequently featured in a seal-carving magazine published by the Seal-Carving Art Museum, China.
He was the editor of “Cang xiu shu wu you peng shu zha “(Letters from Cang Xiu Studio) published in 2016. In 2022, he published a book “Xia Chong Yu Bing Ji”. He also assists galleries and museums on a freelance basis with the interpretation of calligraphy and colophons on artefacts.