Master Class in Painting the Figure and Environment

Yuqi Wang was born in China, 1958. He now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His work has been collected by many public institutions, including: the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., the Art Museum of Harvard University, China National Gallery, as well as by private collectors all over the world. His work has been recognized with awards both nationally and internationally, winning the “Grand Prize” at The International Portrait Competition of the Portrait Society of America and “Second Prize” at The Portrait Competition of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., among others.

Wang classically trained at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts and Central Academy of Fine Arts, China. He has huge artistic talent as a self-taught, child prodigy, in the time of the cultural revolution. His early work was influenced by both the heritage of the Chinese tradition as well as “naturalistic,” also known as “communist realism”, of the former Soviet Union, which was the only acceptable avenue afforded to his young career, until he discovered the work of Rembrandt, in bad-quality prints. He finds emotional connection deep inside human nature without the barrier of race. He experienced brilliant success with his artistic career in China. Wang settled in the United States and since then his view and passion of art have been widely embraced in the West, Europe, and America, where the overwhelming amount of modern art movements wiped society’s culture, spurring his creativity. His freedom didn’t find the way to give up, encouraging him even more to find something of timeless value in humanity. Remaining continuously curios in the Renaissance masters, as many are, and later, for a long time, with the work of the Pre-Raphaelites, year after year, he developed rationality through history’s path, to arrive at himself; a contemporary artist, who stands upon our time, facing the condition of people’s lives, sharpening his subjects with signature mastery and sensitivity to the human spirit. Wang believes that art belongs to the personal religion of the painter. When an individual’s talent and wisdom are committed to a noble mission, this conviction will illuminate him. When the artist draws from individual life experience, transforming the outside through artistic production, there is the possibility of a valuable resource within the communal social wealth. The courage to face the self, truthfully strengthens the capacity to create more compelling works about the tensions in human nature, enhancing its richness, individual action gradually becomes a facet of social life; participating objectively in the concrete human historical development of civilization.

See Yuqi’s website