The contemporary Chinese painter

Since the 2000s, contemporary art has experienced rapid growth in China.

The Chinese economic upheaval caused the birth of a new art. Everything became possible despite censorship, and perhaps also because of it. The contemporary painter in China is everywhere in the spotlight. He enjoys artistic freedom.

With the official recognition and highlighting of traditional pictorial art, coupled with a growing interest in ancient calligraphy, contemporary Chinese painters had numerous influences at their disposal.

Without turning away from Western art, the contemporary Chinese painter knows how to make the most of what the world offers him in terms of technological advances, while maintaining the excellence of conventional artistic movements.

Wu Guanzhong

Wu Guanzhong (1919-2010) is a painter representative of modern Chinese painting of the 20th century, originally from Yixing, in Jiangsu province.

Committed to exploring the national defense of art and the modernization of Chinese painting, he has forged a distinctive artistic position.

His oil paintings often depict the “Three Gorges” of the Yangtze River, the northern landscape, birds of paradise, yellow mountain pine and Lu Xun's hometown.

Wu Guanzhong is recognized as one of the founders of modern Chinese painting. He is considered one of the greatest contemporary Chinese painters. Wu's works underwent Western and Eastern influences, such as Fauvism mixed with Chinese calligraphy.

Wu painted various aspects of China, including much of its architecture, plants, animals, people, and many landscapes and bodies of water in a style reminiscent of early impressionist painters. from the 1900s.

Zao Wou-Ki

Zao Wou-Ki is a Chinese-French painter born February 13, 1921 in Beijing.

As a child, he studied in Nantong, Jiangsu, where he learned to paint. In 1935, he entered “Hangzhou Art College” and studied with Lin Fengmian. In 1948, he left to study in France where he settled.

Zao Wou-Ki contributed to the positive connotation of traditional Chinese culture and art. He created a new painting space with changing colors, powerful brushstrokes and a sense of rhythm and light.

He is one of the main representatives of lyrical abstraction.

He was a professor at the National School of Decorative Arts in Paris. Additionally, he has organized more than 160 solo exhibitions around the world.

On the afternoon of April 9, 2013, Zao Wou-Ki died in Vaud, Switzerland, at the age of 92.

Ding Shaoguang

Ding Shaoguang, sometimes written as Ting Shao Kuang, was born in Yungchen, Shanxi Province in 1937.

Graduated from the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts in 1962. From 1962 to 1980, he taught at the Yunnan Arts Institute. In 1979, he created the large-scale mural “Beautiful, Rich and Magical Xishuangbanna” for the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. He published “Ding Shaoguang Xishuangbanna White Life Collection” in the same year.

In July 1980, he moved to the United States.

From 1986 until 1996, Ding Shaoguang held more than 400 solo exhibitions in various countries around the world and his works have been exhibited in more than 50 countries.

Renowned Chinese-American painter, he lives in Los Angeles in the United States.

He is an exceptional modern artist, who demonstrated extraordinary creativity and talent from the age of 11 when he was noticed at the Yunnan School of Modern Painting, a well-known art school in the world of Chinese painting.

Fan Zeng

Born in 1938, Fan Zeng is currently dean of the Institute of Chinese Painting at Peking University.

He made great contributions to the development of Chinese painting, setting a precedent for "neoclassical painting".

In 1984, the permanent Fan Zeng Art Museum was established in Okayama Prefecture, Japan

In 2007, the Fan Zeng Art Museum of Nantong University was opened.

Or Haonian

Ou Haonian, born in Guangdong in 1935, moved to Taiwan in 1970 where he became the number one artist.

At the age of seventeen, Ou Hao studied under Zhao Shao-ang, a giant of the Lingnan school of painting. At the age of 20, he participated in traveling exhibitions in Southeast Asia.

Over the following decades he was invited to exhibit in various locations abroad. Ou Haonian is recognized and respected by the international contemporary art circle.

Huang Yongyu

Huang Yongyu, originally from Fenghuang County, Hunan Province, was born in Changde on July 9, 1924. This Chinese painter, belonging to the Tujia ethnic minority, is currently a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and former director from the Engraving department. In 1946, he married Zhang Meixi.

Huang Yongyu taught himself painting and literature, while also learning from other Chinese painters, such as Li Hua. This self-training gave him great artistic freedom.

Due to his modest family background, Huang Yongyu worked from the age of 12 in small porcelain workshops in the mountainous regions of Anhui and Fujian to earn a living.

At the age of 14, he began publishing his works. His unique engravings are works known throughout the world.

At the age of 16, Huang Yongyu began to make a living from his painting and wood engraving.

Chen Danqing

Chen Danqing was born in Shanghai in 1953.

He is one of the most influential contemporary artists in China. In 1980, he caused a sensation in domestic and foreign art circles with "Tibet Group Paintings",

This is the beginning of a subversive painting.

Regardless of his painting style that is often criticized, Chen Danqing maintains a kind of elegance and simplicity that touches the audience.

Gao Zhanxiang

Gao Zhanxiang was born in Haojiafu Village, Tongzhou, in November 1935.

Calligrapher and photographer, he attaches great importance to the development of cultural enterprises in his country and always defends Chinese national art.

Liu Guosong

Liu Guosong, a native of Qingzhou, Shandong, was born in Anhui in 1932.

He moved to Taiwan in 1949 and began learning painting at the age of 14, while a high school student in Wuchang.

At the age of 20, he studied and practiced Western painting. After graduating from Taiwan Normal University in 1956, he founded the May Painting Society that same year. In 1968, he participated in the creation of the Chinese Ink Painting Society.

He is currently a lecturer in the Department of Fine Arts at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Yue Minjun

Born in 1962 in Daqing, Yue Minjun is considered an icon of contemporary art.

He is the most renowned representative of young Chinese painters.

At the origin of “cynical realism”. Yue Minjun caricatures the standardization of Chinese society. Yue Minjun lives and works in Beijing.

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei is an important figure in the Chinese independent art scene.

He is the main representative of committed artists. He puts all his talent into the fight for human rights and sometimes openly opposes the Chinese government.

Worldwide, contemporary artist Ai Weiwei is considered a major painter.

Liu Wei

Originally from Beijing where he was born in 1972, he still lives there.

This artist is an example of using various materials and media to achieve his goals.

Provocative, it illustrates the excesses of urbanization and rapid materialization of China.

Zhang Xiaogang

Surrealist painter, Zhang Xiaogang became famous with his Bloodline , (stylized and often monochromatic portraits of the traditional Chinese family).

It features traditional characters from the Cultural Revolution.

Today, Zhang Xiaogang is considered one of the most important artists of his generation. He is sought after by the greatest collectors and the protégé of the collector Bernard Arnaud.

Many of these artists experienced the Cultural Revolution of 1966. Some also suffered censorship from the Chinese Communist Party. This complicated past is undoubtedly at the origin of the extraordinary creativity of contemporary Chinese artists. The notoriety of the contemporary Chinese painter continues to increase and the prices of the works are soaring with the interest of major collectors.

Contemporary Chinese art is extraordinarily modern while retaining the experience of a multi-millennial culture.

Related topics:

Figurative painting
The abstract painter

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