Chang Dai-chien

Zhang Daqian; Chinese, 1899 - 1983

BiographyZhang Daqian is one of the most famous Chinese painters of the twentieth century. He was born in Neijiang, Sichuan province, and at age nineteen he went to Japan to study painting. Returning to China in 1919, Zhang settled in Shanghai, where he continued his study of painting and literature. He began teaching art at Nanjing Central University in 1936, but soon after, when China was invaded by Japan, he was detained by that country's army in Beijing.

In 1938 Zhang fled to Sichuan and traveled widely to study cave paintings; this study was to influence his figural painting style. He left mainland China in 1949, upon the establishment of the PeopleÆs Republic, and lived abroad in many places including Taiwan, Brazil, Argentina, and California (at Carmel, on the Monterey Peninsula) eventually settling in Taiwan. Zhang is most renowned for the splashed-ink technique, which he developed late in his career.

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