Shanghai exhibition paints picture of change

The exhibition of Lin's paintings, which cover the most important phases of his career and include a hanging scroll dating to the 1930s borrowed from the Guangzhou Art Museum, provide a great opportunity for art lovers and collectors to experience the artist's portfolio, Chen adds.

Lin was the son of a stonemason from modern-day Meizhou in Guangdong province. He displayed an early fascination for art and learned traditional Chinese painting techniques as a child. After middle school, he won a scholarship to study in France, where he attended the Dijon Art College and later the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His paintings were exhibited at Paris' Salon d'Automne for two consecutive years.

In 1926, he returned to China and was invited by Cai Yuanpei (1868-1940) to be the principal of the National Beijing Fine Art School, and later the first principal of the Hangzhou National College of Art in Zhejiang province, which is known today as the China Academy of Art.

Lin believed that Chinese art should break away from the stylized tradition of the literati and elite aesthetics, and get involved in real life.

"With his studies in France, Lin developed fresh perspectives for Chinese art, and, returning to China, he embarked on a path of modernizing traditional ink painting," says Xiang Liping, executive curator of the exhibition.

While some of the artist's watercolors reflect the influence of contemporary European masters, such as Matisse and Cezanne, his portraits of ancient Chinese women, landscape paintings with birds, and country life scenes, display a harmonious combination between Chinese philosophy and Western art.

The Hangzhou National College of Art, where Lin was the founding principal, nurtured some of the country's most celebrated modern masters, among them Wu Guanzhong and Chu Teh-Chun.