Yan Wenliang

Yan Wenliang
Yan Wenliang, c. 1940
Born	(1893-07-20)20 July 1893 Shanghai, China
Died	1 May 1988(1988-05-01) (aged 94) Shanghai
Alma mater	L'Ecole Superieure Nationale des Beaux Arts
Known for	Oil painting
Movement	Impressionism

Yan Wenliang (Chinese: 顏文樑; 20 July 1893 - 1 May 1988) 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. Born in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, Yan began studying painting in 1909, founded the Suzhou Art Academy in 1922 and went to Paris in 1929, enrolling in the L'Ecole Superieure Nationale des Beaux Arts, making him, along with Xu Beihong and Sanyu, one of the earliest Chinese artists to study abroad in France. He 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 studied painting in Paris between 1929 and 1931, his travels coinciding with those of Liu Haisu, and painted in the Impressionist style. While in Europe, Yan assembled a collection of plaster casts of famous European sculptures, which totalled as many as 500 pieces, which he shipped home to be used at the Academy.

In 1952, as part of a national reorganization of art schools by the Chinese Communist Party, both Shanghai Art Academy and Suzhou Art Academy were moved out of Shanghai and formed the East China Arts Academy in Wuxi.

Yan Wenliang was transferred to the post of vice-director of the East China campus of CAFA, a job that Yan initially refused. Yan was ultimately persuaded by Boshan, a professor of the East China Cultural Department, appealing to Yan's ideals as an educator. Yan accepted the Hangzhou position to teach the ideologically unproblematic subjects of perspective and color theory. In 1957, Yan published a book on colour theory.

In the lively art scene of Shanghai, many painters worked in the Post-Impressionist and Fauvist styles taught before 1949 at the Suzhou Art Academy and the Shanghai Art Academy. The unofficial Shanghai art scene was dominated by the styles of Yan Wenliang and Liu Haisu, which trend persisted even during the later years of the Cultural Revolution.