Hongnian Zhang

Hongnian Zhang is an oil painter from China, with works in the permanent collections of both China's National Museum and National Art Museum. The People's Fine Arts Publishers selected him for their Living Master Series.  

Zhang's formal training was in China's Central Art Academy. After re-education during the Cultural Revolution, Zhang was appointed to the Beijing Art Institute.  As a leading artist of the "Scar Art"movement, his paintings truthfully depicted his generation's experience of the Cultural Revolution.    

Coming to America in 1985, he was among the first artists to introduce Chinese realistic oil painting to the West. His primary residence is in the United States, where he has continued painting, exhibiting, and teaching oil painting for many years, (at the New York Academy of Art, and at the Woodstock School of Art.) His book The Yin-Yang of Painting, which outlines his unique palette and approach, was published by Watson-Guptill in 2000. In 2010-2016, he was a professor at Fudan University's Shanghai Institute of Visual Art.

His diverse interests include history painting, which led to several National Geographic commissions of ancient China, and a commission by the National Museum of China.  Large-scale, epic scenes are his favorite subject matter.

* This statement has been provided directly by the artist in association to their 14^th International ARC Salon entries. This content has not been edited for typos or grammatical errors and has not been vetted for accuracy.