Fang Rending (1901-1975) was a leading member of the Lingnan School of Chinese painting. During his three score years of art life, most of Fang's talent was spent on figure painting, because his philosophy indicates that "We need figure painting in order to advocate new and civilized life styles and help people lead a new life themselves. In a word, we need to paint modern figures with new inspirations and in a new perspective, in stead of the old figures and the outdated, corrupted styles."

Fang was the pupil of Gao Jianfu, the founding father of the Lingnan School of Chinese painting, also called Lingnan Huapai. He studied Chinese painting from Gao between 1923-1929 before he moved his base to Tokyo, Japan to study modern painting. During his years in Japan (1929-1931,1933-1935), Fang was an enthusiastic student of the form, color, lines, idea and composition of the Japanese style of modern painting in comparison to the Chinese ones. The rejuvenation of Chinese painting, said Fang, depends on whether it could find itself a new path in which the traditional painting styles must be renovated in order to fit in with the time.

Fang thus advocated the "modern figure painting" as a new breakthrough for Chinese paintings. He combined the eastern and western painting styles to reflect the new life and the new sense of life. His paintings, as you can see on this page, reflect strongly his understanding of modern figure painting.

Editor: Wing