Li Huayi

An important long overdue monograph on the preeminent Chinese contemporary ink painter Li Huayi, with a comprehensive critical contribution by the art critic and curator Kuiyi Shen. This exquisite volume is a definitive retrospective of his most celebrated works.

The book documents Li Huayi's artistic evolution, surveying his career through a selection of the most representative works from every period of his life. His paintings reveal how the great tradition of Chinese art, through the talented hands of the artist and his innovative mind, is able to interact with Western contemporary trends and provide a fascinating visual insight into the universe of a man suspended between two cultures.Li Huayi, born in 1948 in Shanghai, was raised in China where he learned antique drawing and painting techniques from the age of six.  He was still a teenager when he became a "worker artist" during the Cultural Revolution, drawing mainly propaganda posters. He later discovered the paintings of the Song Dynasty and studied their techniques. He moved to San Francisco in 1982, where he received his M.F.A. at the Academy of Art. 

Kuiyi Shen is Professor of Art History, Theory & Criticism at the University of California, San Diego. His research focuses on modern and contemporary Chinese art.