Born in the Henan province of China, Wang Hongjian received his painting degree from Henan University in 1981. After graduation he worked as an art teacher at the Anyang Teacher’s Institute, eventually transferring to the Henan Painting and Calligraphy Institute in an effort to work full-time on his own painting projects. Hongjian’s works are housed in numerous museum collections, including the Chinese National Fine Art Museum and the Great Hall of the people Museum in Beijing, as well as the Fuguo Art Museum in Japan. His work may also be found in various collections throughout France, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and the USA.

He is one of the last painters who still holds onto Rural Realism. He adds to the heroic, forever optimistic socialist realism of the 1950’s and 1960’s, the missing existentialist realities—death and tragedy. In his painting, he tries to transform his own personal experience by asking a question that touches the core of our existence: “If indeed rural life is no longer our home, then where are we going to repose our soul?”

Wang Hongjian now resides in Beijing and continues to create his evocative paintings.

• Works can be found in numerous museum collections, including the Chinese National Fine Art Museum, the Great Hall of the Peopled Museum in Beijing, and the Fuguo Art Museum in Japan.



• Recipient of the Utrecht Award for “Distinguished Achievement in Portrait Painting” at the 2002 Portrait Arts Festival, an international portrait competition, sponsored by the American Society of Portrait Artists and held at the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art in New York. The society represents members in all fifty United States and 26 other countries.



• Recipient of the President’s Award at the 2001 Portrait Arts Festival.



• Recipient of the Gold Prize in the 1999 National Fine Art Exhibition, China.