Pan Honghai’s personal experience

Pan Honghai’s mother is a peasant girl and his father is a railway switchman. He spent his childhood in the ancient green brick alleys of Jiangnan. When he was in junior high school, he went to Suzhou to study alone and fell in love with painting. Later, he was admitted to the high school affiliated to the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now the China Academy of Art) and studied in the undergraduate oil painting department. Under the careful teaching of Mo Pu, Ma Yuru, Wu Guoting, Quan Shanshi and others , find your own painting world.

After graduating from university, Pan Honghai was assigned to work as an art reporter and editor at "Fuchunjiang Pictorial". Before painting Jiangnan-themed oil paintings, he painted comic strips and propaganda posters. In that era when there were only a handful of art publications, the peak circulation of "Fuchunjiang Pictorial" reached 670,000 copies. From his graduation in 1968 until the 1980s, Pan Honghai participated in and edited 400 issues of the magazine.

During that time, he often went to the countryside to sleep on the same bed with farmers, painting rural teachers, barefoot doctors, and newborn piglets. This experience made him familiar with Jiangnan and developed superb painting skills. As the main creator, his paintings began to have a wide impact across the country.

There are traditional Chinese paintings that complement the beautiful scenery of Jiangnan. It is not easy for oil painters to paint Jiangnan.

Pan Honghai certainly knew that this subject matter was difficult. But in 1985, Pan Honghai went to the United States to give lectures at the American Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago. From New York, Los Angeles to San Francisco, he saw all the world's famous paintings. In the 8-square-meter exhibition hall, 21 of the 56 works he brought were sold overnight. A pile of dollar bills. He used the money to carry back two boxes of canvases and paints, and also brought back confidence - "I have been inspired to become a Chinese oil painter. A successful painter must paint what he is most familiar with." The subject matter. Therefore, I will stick to painting Jiangnan."

Pan Honghai chose an even more difficult choice - painting Jiangnan women. "I just discovered recently that I have been painting oil paintings all my life, all of Jiangnan scenery and Jiangnan women, with the only exception-Lu Xun."

Zhou Xun and Yilin, who were popular on the screen at that time, both served as models for Pan Honghai . "We asked Zhou Xun to fill the teapot with water, and the water splashed. She patted her trouser legs with a very graceful movement. At that time, I admired in my heart, oh, this girl is really full of drama."

For Pan Honghai, this exhibition also brings a deeper level of perfection - even though his family never talks about art, they are deeply influenced by it, and now his two daughters have inherited his father's legacy. The eldest daughter Pan Wenyi teaches art at the Beijing Film Academy, while the younger daughter Pan Wenxun is an associate professor in the Chinese Painting Department of the China Academy of Art.