Yan Pei-Ming was born in Shanghai in 1960; he lives and works between Dijon, Paris and Shanghai.

From the beginning of his career Pei-Ming has stood out for his interest in the human figure and portraiture. He gained international recognition for his expressive and monumental portraits of historical figures like Mao Zedong, the Buddha, the Pope, and Bruce Lee, while also exploring personal themes through self-portraits and depictions of his family.

The artist famously uses a long, mop-sized brush to create his iconic images, working rapidly with wet-into-wet oil paint, primarily on a two-toned monochrome colour palette in black and white or red and white.

Yan Pei-Ming's work is prominently featured in both private and public collections, including: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Heidi Horten Collection; S.M.A.K. Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent; Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou; Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai; Yuz Museum, Shanghai; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Collection Lambert en Avignon, Avignon; Fondation François Pinault, Paris; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain de Bourgogne, Dijon; Institut d’Art Contemporain, Villeurbanne; Le Consortium, Dijon; Les Abattoirs / FRAC Midi-Pyrénées, Toulouse; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes; Musée Paul Valéry, Sète; Collection Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt; Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Banca Popolare di Bergamo, Bergamo; Collezione Fondazione San Patrignano, Rimini; GAMeC - Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo; MAXXI - Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo, Roma; The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Qatar Museums Authority, Doha; Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art, Kyongju; Wooyang Museum of Contemporary Art, Gyeongju; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Málaga; Voorlinden Museum, Wassenaar; Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum, Abu Dhabi; Academy of Arts, Honolulu; Honolulu Museum of Arts, Honolulu; The Hawai’i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, Honolulu; TIA Collection, Santa Fe.

Yan Pei-Ming’s work was included in The Lyon Biennale (1997, 2000); Venice Biennale, Venice (1995, 2003); the Sevilla Biennale, Sevilla (2006); the Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul (2007); The Bangkok Biennale (2018), among others.

Look at Me

Yan Pei-Ming

Lucio Fontana

Pablo Picasso