Frogs are the symbol of rain, fertility and wealth. They are a highly adaptable species that live on land and water, and they sustain the ecological balance by eating up insects. In Chinese art, frogs enjoy symbolic popularity as a subject because they are nimble and cute, with legs that allow them to leap high into the air, symbolising a promotion in rank. Croak! In Singapore pioneer artist Chen Wen Hsi’s scroll painting, he opts for the hoppy amphibians instead of his usual menagerie of gibbons, which he kept as pets (six altogether) for study. He had also painted egrets, squirrels, cranes, paddy-field birds and less so, pigeons. Artist-academician-theorist Chen Wen Hsi, born in China in 1906, was already well-known in art when he settled in Singapore in 1948. He was adept at both Chinese brush paintings and Western art, and in both abstract and realism. He had his tutelage at the Shanghai College of Art and the Xinhua College of Art, in Shanghai, and taught there until 1947. He founded the Chung Yang Painting Society. Wen Hsi was one of the seminal teachers at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art, and taught at various places from 1949 until 1968. He was awarded Taipei National Museum’s Gold Medal in 1980, the first Asean Cultural and Communications Award in 1987, and Singapore’s Meritorious Services Award posthumously in 1992. He was in the Singapore’s Gang of Four visiting Bali for the first time in 1952, the others being Cheong Soo Pieng, Chen Chong Swee and Liu Kang.