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

Deng Fen was born into a literary family in Nanhai county, Guangdong province. When he was young he apprenticed under various scholars and masters of traditional Chinese painting, and calligraphy. He was accomplished in painting figures, flowers, birds, and landscapes. Another Chinese master painter Zhang Daqian (1899-1983) once praised Deng Fen as the “only master of Chinese painting in Guangdong”.

Deng Fen made great contributions to the preservation and development of traditional Chinese painting in south China. He was a founding member of the Society of Chinese Painting Studies in Guangdong and Hong Kong. In 1933 he was invited by Li Yanshan (1898-1961) to serve as a principal professor in Chinese painting at the latter’s Municipal Art School of Guangzhou. Li was another major traditional Guangdong artist, whose works are also shown in this exhibition.

Though holding different views on the development of Chinese painting, the traditional artists and the innovatory Lingnan School artists frequently worked together and shared similar interests in painting subjects, such as southern plants and landscapes.