12 Facts About Yan Wenliang

Yan Wenliang was a Chinese painter and educator, who is regarded as one of the fathers of Chinese oil painting and an important art educator of his time.

Yan Wenliang was one of the four pioneers of Chinese modern art who earned the title of "The Four Great Academy Presidents".

Yan Wenliang founded the Suzhou Art Academy with his friend Zhu Shijie in 1922.

Yan Wenliang studied painting in Paris between 1929 and 1931, alongside other Chinese painters such as Fang Ganmin, his travels coinciding with those of Liu Haisu, and painted in the Impressionist style.

Yan Wenliang was transferred to the post of vice-director of the East China campus of CAFA, a job that Yan initially refused.

Yan Wenliang was ultimately persuaded by Boshan, a professor of the East China Cultural Department, appealing to Yan Wenliang's ideals as an educator.

Yan Wenliang accepted the Hangzhou position to teach the ideologically unproblematic subjects of perspective and color theory.

One surprising result of Yan Wenliang's influence was the development of an underground landscape painting movement in Shanghai during the early 1970s, at the height of the Cultural Revolution's promotion of pro-government and Realist figure painting.

Yan Wenliang attracted many young followers when it was discovered that he painted in the park and that he sometimes gave technical pointers to young artists who worked nearby.

Yan Wenliang welcomed the enthusiastic young artists to his apartment, where he showed them the paintings that he had painted in France and Italy 45 years before.

Yan Wenliang's oil painting "South Lake" was sold for RMB 28.7 million at China Guardian Auctions in Beijing, China in 2020.

Art critic Shang Hui once said, 'Yan Wenliang was one of the very few Chinese artists to have a truly firm comprehension of impressionism while at the same time being a Courbet-influenced Europe-taught realist oil painter.