PROFILE OF LI YANSHENG
Li Yansheng, born in 1943, ancestral home is in south China’s Guangdong province. He is a member of the 10th and 11th CPPCC National Committee, deputy director of the Research Committee and Arts Committee of China National Academy of Painting, first-class artist and researcher, director of China Artists Association, executive director of the Chinese Painting Institute, researcher of the Chinese Art Research Institute, member of the Judging Committee for National Senior Artist Professional Titles of the Ministry of Culture as well as member of the Chinese Calligraphers’ Association, and receives special subsidies issued by the State Council for experts.

Li was a graduate from the middle school attached to Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, the Chinese Painting Department of the China Academy of Fine Arts and the Graduate Department of Chinese Painting Class of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He has participated in many domestic and overseas important exhibitions and won numerous awards. His works are collected in the State Counail conference rooms, the Xihua Hall that once housed the Premier Zhou Enlai and his wife Deng Yingchao, the Chinese Embassy in France, the National Art Museum of China and the Palace Museum, and some of them were chosen as national gifts to foreign leaders. Jacques Chirac, former French President, regarded him as “a great modern artist with extraordinary talents” and Kofi Atta Annan, former UN Secretary General,remarked that his works are full of artistic beauty.

Li has published many albums and works including One Hundred Righteous People, Collections of Li Yansheng, Brush Sketches by LiYansheng, Selected Works of Li Yansheng, the reprinted scroll of Spirit of the Mountains and Rivers in a reduced format, The Wise Men—Portraits of Chinese and Foreign Celebrities by Li Yansheng and Famous Painters and Strength of Characters—Achieves of Artistic Research of Li Yansheng, and planned the debut performance of the large symphonic picture Spirit of the Mountains and Rivers. Recently, he published Fingers of God—Portraits of Successors of National Intangible Cultural Heritage by Li Yansheng,