Zhang Daqian, China's Best Painter for 500 Years

Mark O'Neill June 04, 2026 12:37

At Sotheby’s art auction in Hong Kong in April this year, it put on sale three works by Zhang Daqian ( 張大千). One of them, Sunshine after Rain (雨後斜陽), sold for HK$15.36 million.

It was evidence that, more than 40 years after his death, Zhang’s work still commands high prices. Many consider him the greatest Chinese painter for 500 years.

According to art auction house Christie’s, in 2011 Zhang became not only the most popular Chinese artist at auction but the best-selling artist in the world, surpassing his former acquaintance, Pablo Picasso.

Joint Publishing has just brought out “Master of Brush and Men – Zhang Daqian’s Pablo Picasso”, my biography of his extraordinary life.

He was the first Chinese painter to earn an international reputation, in Europe, the U.S. and East Asia, and sell for high prices in these countries. He achieved this by the quality and originality of his work and an ability to promote himself – rare among Chinese of his time.

He attributed his success to 70 per cent hard work and 30 per cent talent. During his life, he completed more than 30,000 paintings, an astonishing number. He worked intensively wherever he was, right up to his final visit to a hospital in Taipei; he died there on April 2, 1983.

He was born in 1899 in Neijiang, Sichuan in southwest China. He studied textile dyeing in Kyoto, Japan. He did meticulous study of ancient Chinese masters. His work combined their techniques and knowledge of their work with his own original style. This was enriched by two years and seven months, from 1941 to 1943, copying historic Buddhist wall paintings in Dunhuang, west China

After the war, he returned to a flourishing career in Shanghai and Beijing. In December 1949, he found himself in Chengdu, the last city held by the Nationalist government; surrounded by the PLA, its surrender was a matter of days. Thanks to connections at the highest level of the government, he obtained three tickets on one of the last aircraft out of the city. He left with his wife and a daughter.

Daqian did not want to live under the new government. He spent a year in India and then migrated to Argentina, where he spent two years. Unable to extend his visa, he moved to Brazil in 1954. He spent US$2 million to buy 18 hectares of land near Sao Paulo and build a sprawling Chinese garden with a lotus pond and large lake. He lived there for 17 years.

It proved to be a good decision. He was most productive; his fame spread to Europe and the United States. In 1956, in Nice, he met Pablo Picasso, the most famous European painter of that era. It was a masterstroke of publicity. The media revelled in stories about a meeting of the top two artists of the East and West. He adopted the persona of a Chinese scholar – a long beard he wore from the age of 25, a grey robe, a black hat, cloth shoes, a big smile and a gibbon monkey on his shoulder.

In 1978, he moved to Taipei, where he spent the last five years of his life. He built a new home and Chinese garden in Taipei; he continued to work intensively. His funeral was held at the National Palace Museum (NPM); it was attended by the Vice President and other leaders of government and civil society.

In buying paints, scrolls and other materials, Zhang spared no expense – one reason why his paintings have aged so well. The blues and greens are almost as bright as when he used them. He sold “futures” – a client paid him for a painting to be completed in the future.

In a commentary, Christie’s said: “His oeuvre is noteworthy for the many painting styles that he mastered, from highly meticulous and detailed portraits to bold and expressive splashed-ink landscapes. While he was highly innovative as he developed his own unique style, he always insisted that his art was firmly rooted in Chinese tradition. As is usually the case with ink artists, his later works, especially his vibrant splashed-ink landscapes, are the most sought after.”

“Zhang was a great master in art, playing an indispensable role in the development and progress of Chinese fine art through the 20th century,” said Chan Kai Chon, director of Macao Museum of Art, which showed 100 of his masterpieces at an exhibition in 2017.

“His artistic achievements have had a significant influence over subsequent generations of artists, especially his attitude and approach towards art study, his remarkable creativity, and the multiplicity of art forms he practised,” he said.

Zhang’s personal life was no less astonishing. He had four wives, three concubines and 16 children. Of the concubines, one was Korean and one Japanese. When he left the mainland in 1949, he took with him his fourth wife and one daughter. The other wives and children remained in the mainland; thereafter they looked to him for financial support.

Mark O'Neill

A Hong Kong-based writer, teacher and speaker.