Zhang Anzhi

China

1911 – 1991

Zhang Anzhi was a Chinese painter and Olympian born in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province. He studied under Xu Beihong and Lü Fengzi at the National Central University, later teaching there and at the China Academy of Art in Chongqing. In 1936, he joined Xu Beihong and fellow artists in Guilin, helping to establish the region as a new artistic hub through exhibitions, publications, and art education. His works were included in Art From Fighting China at MoMA (1942) and the Exhibition of Contemporary Chinese Paintings at the Royal Watercolour Society in London, which toured widely across the UK.

In 1946, Zhang was selected under the Sino-British Boxer Indemnity Fund to study at the University of London, where he explored the fusion of Western naturalism and Chinese aesthetics. He held a solo exhibition in Sheffield in 1947 and represented China in the art competition at the 1948 London Olympics. Returning to Beijing, he became a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and remained a key figure in modern Chinese art. In 2018, the National Art Museum of China held a major retrospective of his work.