Ai Zhongxin was born in Zhejiang Province, China in 1915. He was the Vice President of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and of the Chinese Artists Association in Beijing in 1978, and prior to that he was a Professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. As a student in 1937, he attended the Chinese Art Exhibition in Moscow, and in 1941 graduated from Central University Fine Arts Department. In 1946, he joined the teaching staff at Beijing National Art Academy and became the 
head of the Oil Painting Department. He was also a member of the editorial committee of the Chinese Encyclopedia of oil painters. Ai Zhongxin was known as an oil painter who was muchinfluenced by Soviet socialist realism, and is regarded as a representative figure of the first generation of painters trained by the pioneers of Chinese oil painting.
Grassland, 1984
Oil on Canvas
30" x 43" (109cm x 76cm)About this work
Ai Zhongxin, from personal experience in natural sceneries, acquired an interest for the art of realism. Brought up from the country, he had a love for nature and often showed the emotion of a poet. For this reason, in painting, his woks were likely to be mingled with feeling from sight and reach a serenity of a self-less state. He was well known for his belief that one’s disposition should be true but one’s means flexible. The themes of his works are rich in coloring and plain in brushwork. Like the painters of the elder generation, he attached great importance to painting from life.
