Tan Choon Ghee was revered for his paintings of architecture, people, and street life in Penang. Using delicate watercolours, the atmosphere of an open courtyard in front of a temple has been finely illustrated. The forms and details of the architecture and sculptures in the temple were captured using the medium of watercolour, along with nuanced contrasts of light and shadow. Choon Ghee was trained at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore, graduating in 1951, and continued his studies at the Slade School of Art in London, graduating in 1969. After receiving a German Government painting scholarship and an Australian Government TV set design scholarship, he worked for TV Singapore and TV Broadcasting Ltd in Hong Kong. But he gave up a cushy job to go full time into painting at the end of 1967, and never looked back. He was given a retrospective by The Art Gallery Penang in 1992, and a grander one chronicling his works from 1957 to 2000 by the Penang State Art Gallery in 2000.