State Of The Art

Dr Sue Anne Toh has designed a sprawling abode that lets her showcase and enjoy her growing collection of paintings and sculptures.

- Renée Batchelor

To say that Dr Sue Anne Toh is an art lover would be a massive understatement. Framed and lined up on walls and stairways, sitting atop chests and sideboards, leaning against large windows, her art collection is best described as everything, everywhere, all at once. But make no mistake, while her home boasts an impressive collection of Singaporean art ranging from paintings by Chen Wen Hsi to pottery by Iskandar Jalil, it is far from being a stuffy museum. Instead, her three-storey house in Newton which sits on 5,000 square feet of land, has a relaxed, breezy feel, with the art pieces-ranging from Chinese ink paintings to pottery to large-form sculptures-thoughtfully curated and fitting in seamlessly with the chic furnishings and lush landscaping.

Dr Toh lives in the home with her husband, Steven, who works in finance, her two children, aged 10 and 13, and two dogs. They moved to this property in December of 2020, having stayed previously in a conservation house in Cairnhill. The main reason for the move was to have a personalised space that could properly house all their art. She told her architect, Jonathan Quek of RT+Q, that she wanted to see either "greenery or water from every corner of the home and every window she looked out of".