8 facts about Lin Fengmian

Lin Fengmian (Chinese: 林風眠; November 22, 1900 – August 12, 1991), originally Lin Fengming (林凤鸣), was a Chinese painter and is considered a voyager of unbiased Chinese painting for blending Chinese and Western styles, he was one of the old-fashioned Chinese painters to psychotherapy in Europe. He was plus an important innovator in the Place of Chinese art education. He was one of the pioneers of Chinese unprejudiced art, who earned the title of “The Four Great Academy Presidents”.

Born in Ge Gong Ling village which is located in Meijiang District, Xiyang Baigong Township, in the suburbs of today’s Meizhou municipality in Guangdong province, China. His dad was a painter and Lin displayed an early concentration for arts and excelled at it.As allocation of the teenage Chinese elite, Lin participated in the Diligent Work-Frugal Study Program and went to France. He travelled to Paris subsequently Chinese architect Liu Jipiao and performer Lin Wenzheng and he connected when Chinese artists vibrant in Paris, such as Xu Beihong. Lin spent the to the lead years of his career in Europe, moving to the prestigious Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France in 1920 to investigation painting in the studio of Fernand Cormon, who furthermore trained supplementary such renowned painters such as Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Emile Bernard, etc. In 1923, he moved to Berlin, Germany for a breakdown tour.

In 1926 he returned to China, where he became the principal of the National Beijing Fine Art School. In 1928, with promotion from Cai Yuanpei, he founded the Hangzhou National College of Art (now called the China Academy of Art) in Hangzhou, becoming its first principal and taught western painting along in the space of French-trained artists such as Fang Ganmin and Wu Dayu.

Lin’s works and sparkle were met with good tragedy. While many of his beforehand works were destroyed by Japanese soldiers during the Sino-Japanese War, many of his sophisticated works were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. After subconscious heavily criticized and denounced by the Gang of Four, a Chinese political faction, Lin personally destroyed his own works by soaking and next flushing his works all along the toilet; however, he nevertheless ended stirring being imprisoned for more than four years. Zhou Enlai finally attributed his release papers. After his release, Lin slowly began to recreate many of his past destroyed works.

In 1977, thanks to the instruction of Marshall Ye Jianying, who is furthermore from Meizhou, he was allowed to leave China on the assumption that he could reunite with his family in Brazil. He visited his family upon several occasions in Brazil but arranged in Hong Kong, where he remained until his death in 1991.

Fengmian’s artwork is featured in museum art collections, including: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cernuschi museum and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

In April 2021 Lin’s painting The Fiery Battle Of Red Cliffs was sold for HK$9,855,000 at the Sotheby’s Spring sales in Hong Kong.