Yan Pei-Ming

Yan Pei-Ming was born in Shanghai in 1960 and came of age during the Cultural Revolution, an experience that would leave a lasting imprint on his artistic sensibility. Around 1980–81 he relocated to France, where he enrolled at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Dijon, graduating in 1986. He has lived and worked principally in France ever since, occupying a singular position as a Chinese-French painter whose work moves fluidly between the intimate and the monumental.

Painting is Yan Pei-Ming's primary language, and portraiture its dominant grammar. His canvases — often large in scale and executed with a forceful, gestural economy — have engaged subjects ranging from political figures and historical icons to members of his own family. The Man Who Weeps (2019), a family-portrait project connected to the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon, exemplifies the biographical depth that runs beneath even his most expansive compositions. That same year he presented Yan Pei-Ming face à Courbet at the Musée Courbet in Ornans, a dialogue with nineteenth-century realism that underscored his sustained engagement with the history of painting. His work is held in the collections of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Musée national d'art moderne in Tokyo, and the Shanghai Art Museum.

Represented by Massimo De Carlo — a relationship dating to 1998 — and by Thaddaeus Ropac across its London, Paris, Salzburg, and Seoul spaces, Yan Pei-Ming has maintained a consistent international exhibition presence. Solo presentations have included Autoportraits at Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, in 2021; Wild Game at Massimo De Carlo, Milan, in 2023; and, in 2025, both Eye to Eye at Thaddaeus Ropac, Pantin, and Against the Light at Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg. His work has drawn sustained critical attention in publications including Beaux Arts, Le Figaro, and Le Journal des Arts.

The period from 2025 into 2026 marks a particularly concentrated moment of institutional visibility. A solo exhibition, Yan Pei-Ming: A Burial in Shanghai, opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in April 2025 and runs through early 2026. Concurrently, his work appears in the Pinault Collection exhibition at the Couvent des Jacobins in Rennes and in the Musée national Picasso-Paris's anniversary group exhibition 1985–2025: 40 ans du musée national Picasso-Paris. Further solo exhibitions are scheduled at Centre Pompidou-Metz, the Leopold Museum in Vienna, and the HE Art Museum in Foshan, with participation in the Traces of Water exhibition at the Bienal del Agua in Cascais extending into September 2026.