Ashmolean Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Fu Baoshi was born in Nanchang, Jiangxi province. From 1933 to 1935 he studied in Tokyo at the Imperial Art Academy, and on his return taught at the Central University in Nanjing where he was professor from 1935 to 1952; during the Sino-Japanese War he moved with the University to Chongqing (Chungking) in Sichuan and in 1946 he returned to Nanjing where he spent the rest of his life. He sat on artists' committees at both national and local levels and in 1959 collaborated with Guan Shanyue (q.v.) on the huge painting 'This land with so much beauty aglow' in the Great Hall of the People at Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Fu wrote widely on the history of painting and in the 1930s developed his own style, to which he remained true throughout his career; he was deeply influenced by the Qing indiviualist painter Shi Tao, of whom he wrote a biography. Together with Huang Binhong (q.v.) he is regarded as the greatest literati painter of the twentieth century. See also Cat.No.31.