About
Yan Pei-Ming was born into a working-class family in Shanghai in 1960. He began painting and drawing at an early age, and proved to be a talented artist. In 1978, he was deeply impressed by the exhibition Landscapes and farmers, rural life in 19th-century France 1820-1905 (Paysages et paysans, la vie rurale en France au XIXe siècle 1820-1905), one of the first exhibitions of Western art in China. From then on, he was fascinated by the great European classical masters. His curiosity led him, at the age of 19, to leave his homeland to study at the Beaux-Arts in France. These formative years enabled him to develop the foundations of a truly personal figurative language.
From the outset, Yan Pei-Ming used a raw, powerful and rapid vocabulary, constructed with an economy of color and favoring monumental formats. He graduated in 1986, then spent a year at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Fine Arts (Institut des Hautes Études en Arts Plastiques) directed by Pontus Hultén. In 1990, he obtained French nationality and bought his first studio in Dijon the same year. He began to take part in numerous group exhibitions, developing his work on portraiture and self-portraiture: Mouvements 2 (Movements 2) at the Centre Pompidou (1991), Identity and Alterity: Figures of the Body, 1895-1995 at the 46th Venice Biennale (1995), Faces from Soweto – 21 Portraits of Children in Soweto (1996). In 1993-1994, he was a resident at the Villa Medici in Rome, where he presented his monumental project Au bord de l'eau – 108 brigands (By the Water – 108 Bandits). His favorite subject is painting the human, questioning the being, its profound and contradictory nature.
In 2003, his participation in the 50th Venice Biennale established him as a leading figure on the international art scene. Prestigious museums invited him for major solo exhibitions: Hommage à mon père (Tribute to my father) at the Shanghai Art Museum (2005), Yan Pei-Ming: Life Souvenir at the Des Moines Art Center in the United States (2008), Les Funérailles de Monna Lisa (The Funeral of Mona Lisa) at the Musée du Louvre (2009) – in the same year, this monumental work was acquired by the Louvre Abu Dhabi – No Comment at the CAC de Málaga in Spain (2015), Un enterrement à Shanghai (A burial in Shanghai) at the Musée d'Orsay (2019), Tigres & Vautours (Tigers & Vultures) at the Collection Lambert and the Grande Chapelle du Palais des Papes in Avignon (2021), Pittore di storie (Painting Histories) at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence (2023), A burial in Shanghai at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in the United States (2025) ...
In his mature years, Yan Pei-Ming embraced a more subtle pictorial style in which color took on greater importance. He produced series of portraits, self-portraits, animals, landscapes, still lifes, vanitas and religious paintings. Yan Pei-Ming confronts the great masters through his interpretation of classical masterpieces, which he skirts around with intelligence. His pictorial language prevails, creating a new resonance. Each painting is inhabited by an emotion.