Riverside House by Wu Guanzhong

He enrolled at the Hangzhou art college in 1936, studying both Chinese traditional and Western paintings under famous painters Pan Tianshou (1897-1971) and Lin Fengmian (1900-1991). Pan was a notable painter and art educator of modern China, and Lin was a pioneer of modern Chinese painting for blending Chinese and Western painting styles. Wu graduated from the College in 1942.

In 1947 Wu traveled to Paris to study at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts. After his return to China in 1950, he worked as a teacher. He first taught in the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, where he encouraged his students to draw on both Western and Chinese art to create their style. However, this clashed with the Soviet- inspired social realism prevalent at the time, and Wu received a lot of criticism.

Wild Chrysanthemum by Wu Guanzhong

In 1953, he was expelled from the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Between 1953 and 1964 he taught at Tsinghua University and then Beijing Fine Arts Normal College, where he insisted that it was the artists’ responsibility to attack conservatism and narrow-mindedness. At the start of the Cultural Revolution (1966 - 1976) he was prohibited from painting, writing and teaching. Between 1970 and 1973, Wu was forced to work on a farm in Hebei province and in 1972 was only allowed to paint on Sundays.