Chen Yifei

Chen Yifei (April 12, 1946 – April 10, 2005) was a renowned Chinese classic-style painter, art director and film director.

He has made many films such as The Music Box and Inyak Twilight.

Chen Yifei is a central figure in the development of Chinese oil painting.

He is also considered one of China's most renowned contemporary artists.

Although denounced for "capitalist behavior", Chen's work with oil painting earned him recognition from Chinese authorities.

Chen soon became one of the leading painters of the Cultural Revolution.

He was famous for his Mao Zedong portraits and depiction of grand heroic events of the modern Chinese nation.

Since the Cultural Revolution, Chen became the forerunner of a new age in Chinese aesthetics, promoting a new sense of modernity and lifestyle in his paintings, including fashion, cinema and design.

In his oil paintings, Chen abandoned his uncritical glorification of the party to blend realistic technique and romanticism with Chinese subject matter, especially melancholic and lonely women in traditional dresses.

His characteristic "Romantic Realism" paintings use dark and dense colors and convey a sense of richness and integrity.

Chen graduated from the High School for Art in Shanghai in 1964, then graduated from the Shanghai Training School of Art (also called the Shanghai College of Art) in 1965 and soon after began focusing almost exclusively on oil painting.

Within a year, as the Cultural Revolution gained steam, Chen caught the attention of Communist officials for his propaganda works that frequently glorified soldiers of the Communist party and portrayed grand images of Mao Zedong.

Chen was soon viewed as "one of the leading artists at the state-financed Shanghai Institute of Painting."

In the 1970s, his profile rose due to his oil works.

Chen began to attract the attention of Western buyers, including Armand Hammer (Chairman of the Occidental Petroleum Corporation in the United States), who purchased Chen's Hometown Recall as a gift for Deng Xiaoping.

As the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, Chen continued making oil paintings, now shifting his focus to a more romantic and European style.

Chen was considered "one of the first artists to bridge the gap between the art of the Cultural Revolution and Western contemporary art".

In 1980 he became one of the first artists from the People's Republic of China permitted to study art in the United States.

Wally Findlay Galleries was the first gallery to grant Chen Yifei an exclusive contract.

Chen Yifei enrolled at Hunter College and later found work as an art restorer.

In 1980 Chen left his position as head of the Oil Painting Department of the Shanghai Painting Academy in China to explore the art scene of New York, being one of the first artists of the People's Republic of China allowed out of the state to study art in the USA.

Chen often told interviewers that he arrived in New York "with only $38 in his pocket" but still managed to catch the attention of gallery owners early after arrival.

Although he was successful as an artist in China, he ventured to the United States, not to necessarily make his print on the art establishment, but to explore his predilections of artistic style.

The New York art scene offered him the freedom to experiment and to settle with a form that he could be comfortable using.

Chen expressed "elat[ion] by the freedom to look at art" and explore his boundaries.

He gained entrance at Hunter College in the US after he arrived and worked as an art restorer.

In 1983, before he attained his master's degree at Hunter, his solo exhibition at the Hammer Galleries was a great success.

Later, he established himself as a contract artist for the Hammer Galleries.

By 1983, before graduating from Hunter College, Chen's solo exhibitions at the Hammer Galleries had promoted his fame to where he later signed a contract to paint for Hammer Galleries.

Chen then graduated from Hunter College in 1984 with a Master's in Art.

Chen returned to China and settled in Shanghai in 1990.

He painted Impressionist landscapes of Tibet and his native Zhejiang Province.

At the same time, he had also transformed himself into a style entrepreneur, creating fashion brands, decorating hotels and selling high-end clothing and chic home furnishings.

He also supervised one of the country's biggest modeling agencies.

Some critics said he turned increasingly commercial.

In 1990, Chen returned to China, settling in Shanghai.

Critics of Chen's work say that this period marked when Chen became a more commercial artist.

In 2005, while working on a feature film, "Barber," Chen fell ill and died.

Chen was born in Ningbo of the coastal province of Zhejiang.

Later, the Chen family moved to Shanghai and Chen began his studies of Russian artists and Socialist Realism.