View allAll Photos Tagged groupportraits
I took this in a carpet showroom, run (and owned) by Berber tribesmen in Rissani, Morocco. The gentleman on the right had given us the sales pitch before this and I had been taking pictures throughout (while there is a general aversion to portrait photography in Morocco, this tends to be waived when there's a chance you might be persuaded to part with significant amounts of cash).
When I showed some of the pictures I had taken (ah...the wonderful immediacy of digital photography!), his colleagues were suddenly keen to be photographed as well. Naturally, I was happy to oblige...and I've promised to send them some prints.
From a set of originally more than 200 negatives. Unfortunately many of them were exposed to moisture during the last 114 years and are irretrievable lost. I have not scanned and edited all the negatives yet, but I will upload the better ones from time to time. The amateur photographer certainly did not have the best camera, some pictures are only snapshots, but they still convey an interesting impression about an exotic journey at the very beginning of the 20th century.
The family who made this trip started from Lohr am Main heading to Vienna, where they probably visited friends before they boarded the Orient Express Wien - Budapest - Belgrad - Sofia - Constantinople. Part of the journey was made on a ship on the river Danube.
In Turkey, they made a trip to Eskişehir.
Pen and black ink, watercolor, and gouache on wove paper; 39.2 x 52.3 cm.
Gershon Iskowitz was born in Kielce, Poland. He began as an expressionist painter who dealt with figurative subjects and later painted the Canadian landscape in an abstract expressionist style. At the age of four he was sent to the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva where he began drawing. After a year and a half he begged his father to be allowed to return home and was given permission. He was tutored in Polish and placed in a public school. He was bullied at school and left after two and a half years. His father set up a small studio area for him in their home and allowed him to spend his time drawing and painting. At age nine he exchanged his art posters for free admission to a local cinema.
He registered at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 1939. But war broke out before he began classes so he had to return to Kielce and was put to forced labor. In September 1943 the Kielce Ghetto was burned. Gershon and his brother, Yosl, were sent to Auschwitz. Gershon painted or drew at night only after every one else was asleep. He said "Why did I do it? I think it kept me alive. There was nothing to do. I had to do something in order to forget the hunger. It's very hard to explain, but in the camp painting was a necessity for survival." He was transferred to Buchenwald in 1944. Near the end of the war he tried to escape but was seriously wounded. In 1947 he attended the Academy of Fine Arts Munich and had private study with Oskar Kokoschka who painted in intense expressionistic style.
Gershon's first application to move to Canada was rejected because he had a limp. He reapplied and drew a picture for the bureaucrat in immigration. The fellow declared Gershon a genius, and approved his emigration application. In 1949 he emigrated to Canada. In 1952 he attended Artist's Workshop, Toronto until 1959–60 and began sketching trips to Markham and Uxbridge. He stopped painting scenes from his past in the mid 50's and turned to the Canadian landscape for his models. A major change in his painting style occurred in 1967 when a Canada Council grant permitted him to view the northern landscape from a helicopter. His painting became explosions of color and light.
In 1954 he had his first exhibition with the Canadian Society of Graphic Artists. He also did some part-time teaching at McKellar Lake. In 1964 he became associated with Gallery Moos, where he had many one-man exhibitions. In 1982 Gershon was honored by the AGO with a forty year retrospective of his work. A subset of the exhibition was put on display in London, England. Gershon said [painting] "... is just an extension of myself. It's a plastic interpretation of the way I think. You reflect your own vision. That's what it's all about. Art is like evolution and life, and you've got to search for life, stand on your own feet and continue. The only fear I have is before starting to paint. When I paint, I'm great, I feel great."
Photographer: Reuben R. Sallows (1855 - 1937)
Description:
Studio portrait of ten women; each wears large hat, crepe paper aprons, plus crepe paper collars and large ties; two women seated on floor in front; three in centre are seated on chairs; five stand at back; woman standing on extreme left wears dark striped jumper over light blouse; woman standing on extreme right has bow on shoe.
Object ID : 0359-rrs-ogohc-ph
Order a higher-quality version of this item by contacting the Huron County Museum (fee applies).
This is a photograph of the nurses and patients at Longshaw Lodge Convalescent Home for Wounded Soldiers, Grindleford, near Sheffield. This photograph was taken in June 1917.
Reference: DF.BGS-4-9-3
The photograph is part of a larger collection that offers a rare and intimate glimpse in to the Life of a Wounded Soldier recovering from the horrors of World War One.
This particular set of photographs is taken from a collection held at Tyne & Wear Archives capturing the every day lives of the nurses and patients at the 3rd Northern General Hospital, Sheffield and Longshaw Lodge Convalescent Home for Wounded Soldiers, Grindleford, near Sheffield. The photographs were taken between August 1916 and June 1917.
A blog about this fascinating collection can been viewed here on the Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums website.
(Copyright) We're happy for you to share these digital images within the spirit of The Commons. Please cite 'Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums' when reusing. Certain restrictions on high quality reproductions and commercial use of the original physical version apply though; if you're unsure please email archives@twmuseums.org.uk
A beautiful bunch of young people who I met and chatted to (for quite a while) at Liverpool's Pier Head on Liverpool Pride day, 2011.
School Class Portrait. RPPC.
Unposted.
AZO Triangles Up Stamp Box.
Written on reverse:
Marian
Authors Note:
From the same lot as the Bergit Flaat portrait. Possibly labeled with the same ball point pen.
[06560]
Oil on canvas; 73 x 109 cm.
Albert Gustaf Aristides Edelfelt was a Swedish-speaking Finnish painter.
Albert Edelfelt was born in Porvoo, Finland. His father Carl Albert was an architect. Edelfelt admired the poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, who was a friend of the family. The company of Runeberg had a lasting impact on Edelfelt, who from time to time turned to scenes from Finnish history in his paintings. Edelfelt went on to illustrate Runeberg's epic poem The Tales of Ensign Stål. He studied art in Antwerp (1873–1874), Paris (1874–1878) and Saint Petersburg (1881–1882).
He married Baroness (friherinnan) Ellan de la Chapelle in 1888 and they had one child.
Edelfelt was one of the first Finnish artists to achieve international fame. He enjoyed considerable success in Paris and was one of the founders of the Realist art movement in Finland. He influenced several younger Finnish painters and helped fellow Finnish artists such as Akseli Gallen-Kallela to make their breakthrough in Paris. Among his students was Leon Bakst.
Albert Edelfelt was selected as the main motif in a recent Finnish commemorative coin celebrating the 150th anniversary of his birth, the €100 Albert Edelfelt and painting commemorative coin, minted in 2004. The reverse shows an embossed face of the artist.
Polychrome woodblock print; ink and color on paper.
Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese: 鈴木 春信; c. 1725 – 7 July 1770) was a Japanese designer of woodblock print artist in the Ukiyo-e style. He was an innovator, the first to produce full-color prints (nishiki-e) in 1765, rendering obsolete the former modes of two- and three-color prints. Harunobu used many special techniques, and depicted a wide variety of subjects, from classical poems to contemporary beauties. Like many artists of his day, Harunobu also produced a number of shunga, or erotic images. During his lifetime and shortly afterwards, many artists imitated his style. A few, such as Harushige, even boasted of their ability to forge the work of the great master. Much about Harunobu's life is unknown.
Local identifier: SFF 89203_0007
Photographer: Unknown
Caption: "Her kan du see Kjore a Jensen og John Gamede og Malla = Miss Nilsen da de com at hente mig hjem fra Hospetalet sist aar. Jeg har vært frisk siden. Malla"
The reverse side of this image can be seen here: www.flickr.com/gp/fylkesarkiv/75Qg2w
An old family photo, edited.. My grandfather Herman Allison: top row, first on the right. These are students at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. The photo was taken in 1905, restored by Russ Allison Loar.
Born in 1767 in Montargis, Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, received a substantial humanitarian education. After his father's death in 1784, he joined the studio of Neoclassical genius Jacques-Louis David, and at the age of eighteen he was already one of his most gifted pupils. He won the Prix de Rome in 1789 for the composition Joseph Recognized by His Brothers and went to Italy for five years. There he experienced the influence of Italian Renaissance masters Correggio and Leonardo da Vinci.
In 1793 in Italy, Girodet witnessed the siege and destruction of the French Academy in Rome, who had raised tricolor and invoked the fury of some of the local population. Girodet had only a narrow escape. He left Rome for Naples, later visited Florence and Genoa, where he met Gros, and returned to France in 1795. At the Paris Salon of 1793 Girodet was represented by Endymion Asleep, which diverged from Neoclassical tradition and employed gentle nuances of illumination and color that anticipated the effects of Romantic art. This ‘transitional’ style between Neoclassicism and Romanticism is seen in many of Girodet’s works, e.g. Hippocrates Rejecting Artaxerxes’ Gifts (1793) and Ossian Meeting Shadows of French Warriors (1802). In 1808, Girodet became a member of the Légion d’Honneur. His attempts to abandon the monumental style in favor of the early Romantic themes that were then very popular in France aroused the sharp criticism of his teacher, J.-L. David.
Carte de visite.
Studio of Henry Jenkins, St. Mary's Street, Wallingford.
Bought from an eBay seller Bath, United Kingdom.
I saw them clustered on a street corner in Toronto’s Kensington Market, the four of them accompanied by two dogs and a scattering of backpacks and musical instrument cases. They seemed to be in a good mood socializing so I approached them and introduced myself, explaining that I thought they would make a very nice group portrait if they were willing. The young woman was the outgoing one and served as their spokesperson, saying “Totally.” It was a friendly reception. Meet Matt, Groggy, Charlotte, and Jamie.
I think the guys were a bit nonplussed by this man in his 70s approaching them but they seemed carried along by Charlotte’s outgoing, bubbly response and the photo was taken without further ado. It took a little bit of arranging to get them lined up but the dogs even stood still. Charlotte was eager to have a copy of the photo and wrote down her email and said she would share it with the others.
I learned that Charlotte and Groggy are a couple. Groggy is originally from London Ontario but is now living in Halifax with Charlotte. They set out cross-country a couple of months ago, (clearly on a shoestring) and joined up in Toronto with Jamie who they had met last year. It seems Matt joined the group by being a friend of Jamie's. When I asked what had motivated Charlotte and Groggy to leave Halifax she said Halifax is too small and the whole city (one of Canada’s Atlantic ports) is under construction which is a big pain. Charlotte and Groggy hitchhiked and hopped trains with their two dogs and slept out wherever they could find an informal camp spot. They were currently living beneath the Spadina Bridge in Toronto in a tent. She explained that they had stopped over in Montreal for a while before moving on to London Ontario where they visited Groggy’s parents before setting up camp in Toronto where they are busking for a living.
They seemed to be living a life of adventure which had the flavor of the 1950s and I couldn’t help wondering what they would wind up doing when they got a bit older. They seemed to have an affectionate bond and were very nice to me, not being put off by my friendly interest. Jamie said he was trapped in Toronto because he is on probation (unexplained) and he said he is the founder of a group called PIS (Punks In Space). When I asked them what message they had to share with the world they started tossing out a variety of ideas which coalesced into a single coherent message through a “work in progress” process: “Be kind. The world shits on us enough that we don’t need to shit on each other.”
Today I took advantage of the spring sunshine and rode my bike to Kensington Market again. It was bustling due to the weather and it being Saturday. It was fun to run into Groggy and Charlotte and their dogs on the same corner. They were busking with Groggy on guitar and kazoo and Charlotte on the banjo. They paused for a brief wave when they recognized me and I hung around to enjoy the song, then made a small donation and complimented them on their music. They weren’t sure just where Matt and Jamie were but said they would run into them later on. We visited for a while and Charlotte was clearly eager for their photo from yesterday which I had not yet edited and sent. “People take our photos fairly often and say they are going to send them but don’t always remember.” I promised to remember. Charlotte said something about taking photos herself and I said if she had a camera or cell phone I would gladly take a photo on their camera too. She said she had been broke a little while ago and “stupidly” sold her camera and now regretted it.
I offered to take another photo with my camera even though the light was problematic. Groggy was in a sliver of shade against the storefront but Charlotte had bright sunshine skimming her face. I asked her to press back into the sliver of shade which she gladly did. I regretted that their instruments and hands were going to be overexposed, but I was glad to have an extra photo of them. Not wanting to monopolize their earning time I said I would move along but would say goodbye when I returned for my bicycle. Charlotte said “No problem. See you in a bit. Actually, today has been pretty good. People in the Market are super-friendly and we made enough money this morning that we were able to have a restaurant breakfast. That was a nice treat!”
As I left the Market a half hour later we gave one another a thumbs-up across the street.
This is my 482nd submission to The Human Family Group on Flickr.
You can view more street portraits and stories by visiting The Human Family.
Millais showed a prodigious natural facility for drawing, and his parents groomed him from an early age to become an artist. His father was a man of independent means from an old Jersey family. He spent his childhood in Southampton, Jersey and Dinan in Brittany, before going to London in 1838. After a brief period at Henry Sass’s private art school, he was accepted into the Royal Academy Schools in 1840, its youngest-ever student. He won a silver medal there in 1843 for his drawing from the Antique, made his début at the Royal Academy exhibition in 1846 with the accomplished though conventional history painting Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru (London, V&A) and won a gold medal in 1847 for the Tribe of Benjamin Seizing the Daughters of Shiloh (priv. coll.), a composition with struggling nudes in the manner of William Etty.
Real photo postcard. Postally unused.
Bought from an eBay seller in Church Minshull, Cheshire, United Kingdom.
Explored on 16 March, 2012 (#391)
Local identifier: SFF 89203_0150_l2_003_bakside
Caption: "Here we come to see you from Tongaland last year with the Gospel Wagon and the natives. If God will I will go now this year also with the gospel. Malla. If you have one before give that to Su"
This is the reverse side of the following image: www.flickr.com/gp/fylkesarkiv/6C1gxD
Local identifier: SFF 89203_0151_l4_002
Photographer: Unknown
Caption: "Ruth Hall Malla Moe adind Thompson you know Her. She came with me Here 25 years ago. Malla"
The reverse side of this image can be seen here: www.flickr.com/gp/fylkesarkiv/h5qV72
This photo is part of the Australian National Maritime Museum’s William Hall collection. The Hall collection combines photographs from both William J Hall and his father William Frederick Hall - the latter of which is likely to have taken this image. The images provide an important pictorial record of recreational boating in Sydney Harbour, from the 1890s to the 1930s – from large racing and cruising yachts, to the many and varied skiffs jostling on the harbour, to the new phenomenon of motor boating in the early twentieth century. The collection also includes studio portraits and images of the many spectators and crowds who followed the sailing races.
The Australian National Maritime Museum undertakes research and accepts public comments that enhance the information we hold about images in our collection. If you can identify a person, vessel or landmark, write the details in the Comments box below.
Thank you for helping caption this important historical image.
Object number 00013162.
Silkscreen - 38 inks; Image size: 50 x 72 cm.
Carlos Alonso is a contemporary Argentine painter, draftsman and printmaker. Though he was a Social realist in his early career, he is best known as a New realist. Beef is a common element in his work. Born in Tunuyán, where he lived until age seven, he later moved with his family to Mendoza. At the age of fourteen, he entered the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes where he studied under Sergio Sergi in drawing and engraving, Lorenzo Dominguez in sculpture, and Bernareggi Francisco and Ramón Gomez Cornet in painting. At the National University of Cuyo, he studied with Lino Enea Spilimbergo.
Alonso received his first award in 1947. In 1951, he won first prize at the Salon of Painting in San Rafael, the North Hall in Santiago del Estero, and drawing at the Salon del Norte Tucumán. In 1953, Alonso exhibited at the Gallery Viau of Buenos Aires, then traveled to Europe where he exhibited in Paris and Madrid. In 1957, he won the competition held by Emecé Editores to illustrate the second part of Don Quixote,[5] and Martín Fierro in 1959. In 1961, he won the Premio Chantal del Salón de Acuarelistas y Grabadores of Buenos Aires. In the same year, while visiting London, he discovered acrylic painting techniques. His Don Quixote pictures were published on postcards in the Soviet Union in 1963.
His work, characterized by expressive power and social commitment, has been exhibited in numerous exhibitions, including at the Art Gallery International (Buenos Aires), where, in 1967, some 250 of his works relating to Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy were exhibited. Other exhibitions included the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, as well as tapestries and collages at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana in Cuba. In 1971, his works were exhibited in European galleries such as Villa Giulia in Rome, the Eidos of Milan, and the Bedford in London. In 2005, 400 years after Cervantes' work was published, the Museum of Design and Illustration held a tribute exhibition at Buenos Aires' Museo de Artes Plásticas Eduardo Sívori where Alonso's prints and original drawings were displayed. His illustrations have been included in the novel Mad Toy by Roberto Arlt.
Alonso married the artist Ivonne Fauvety. Following the coup of 1976, and the disappearance of his daughter Paloma the following year, Alonso went into exile in Italy, and in 1979, he moved to Madrid. He returned to Argentina two years later. The Bienal de Pintura Paloma Alonso. named in her honor, is a 1990 joint initiative of Alonso and Teresa Nachman.
Alonso is the uncle of the chess grandmaster Salvador Alonso.
Local identifier: SFF 89203_0150_l2_002
Photographer: Unknown
Caption: "Frk. Svalheim. Dronningen i Swaziland. Tante Malla" (image side). "Here we come to see you miss m Svalheim and the Queen of Swaziland. We Read in the book of God. Shel like to be a Christian. She is kind to us. Malla". (reverse side)
The reverse side of this image can be seen here: www.flickr.com/gp/fylkesarkiv/0i9Dt1
After class Brandon asked Infini and Ernest if they agreed to have their picture taken with him. I love this picture, they look really beautiful!
Local identifier: SFF 89203_0026
Photographer: W. H. Schmidt.
Caption: "Tang sept -28-1905. Erindring fra Africa (South) Swaziland. Edward og Walter Clarence to brødre fra vor første mission station Bethel. Maa gud velsigne dig paa dine veier saa du kan til slut finde frem til ditt nye hjem i himmelen ønskes af mig Malla Moe. Biletet tilhøyrer Major Tang, Oslo. Det er tatt 1904 i Chicago. Hun har her med de to sønnene til Henwood".
The reverse side of this image can be seen here: www.flickr.com/gp/fylkesarkiv/F3q8NR
Vintage group portrait in what looks like someone's back yard. This photo is from a found wooden box of vintage Japanese portraits that appear to have been taken by a portrait photographer, likely between the 1930s to 1950s in Japan.
Edward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. In both his urban and rural scenes, his spare and finely calculated renderings reflected his personal vision of modern American life
Teitl Cymraeg/Welsh title: 'Somerville', dwy wraig o flaen plasdy.
Dyddiad/Date: 185-
Cyfeiriad/Reference: crj00137 (PG2064/63)
Rhif cofnod / Record no.: 3590900
Rhagor o wybodaeth am Ffotograffiaeth Gynnar Abertawe yn Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru
More information about Early Swansea Photography at the National Library of Wales
This family goes with the photos of a rural Uighur home that I recently posted. The family was very proud to pose for a photograph. Some time ago I posted a photos of this same boy and his baby sibling.
Photographed in a rural village at the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert;
Xinjiang Province, China
Oil and tempera on zinc; 30.7 x 34.5 cm.
Mexican painter. She began to paint while recovering in bed from a bus accident in 1925 that left her seriously disabled. Although she made a partial recovery, she was never able to bear a child, and she underwent some 32 operations before her death in 1954. Her life’s work of c. 200 paintings, mostly self-portraits, deals directly with her battle to survive. They are a kind of exorcism by which she projected her anguish on to another Frida, in order to separate herself from pain and at the same time confirm her hold on reality. Her international reputation dates from the 1970s; her work has a particular following among Latin Americans living in the USA.
Small scale, fantasy and a primitivistic style help to distance the viewer from the horrific subject-matter of such paintings as Henry Ford Hospital (oil on sheet metal, 1932; Mexico City, Mrs D. Olmedo priv. col., see Herrera, 1983, pl. IV), in which she depicts herself haemorrhaging after a miscarriage, but her vulnerability and sorrow are laid bare. Her first Self-portrait (1926; Mexico City, A. Gomez Arias priv. col., see Herrera, 1983, pl. I), painted one year after her accident, shows a melancholy girl with long aristocratic hands and neck depicted in a style that reveals her early love for Italian Renaissance art and especially for Botticelli.
Kahlo’s art was greatly affected by the enthusiasm and support of Diego Rivera, to whom she showed her work in 1929 and to whom she was married in the same year. She shared his Communism and began to espouse his belief in Mexicanidad, a passionate identification with indigenous roots that inspired many Mexican painters of the post-revolutionary years. In Kahlo’s second Self-portrait (oil on masonite, 1929; Mexico City, Mrs D. Olmedo priv. col., see Herrera, 1983, pl. II), she no longer wears a luxurious European-style dress, but a cheap Mexican blouse, Pre-Columbian beads and Colonial-period earrings. In subsequent years she drew on Mexican popular art as her chief source, attracted by its fantasy, naivety, and fascination with violence and death. Kahlo was described as a self-invented Surrealist by André Breton in his 1938 introduction for the brochure of the first of three Kahlo exhibitions held during her lifetime, but her fantasy was too intimately tied to the concrete realities of her own existence to qualify as Surrealist. She denied the appropriateness of the term, contending that she painted not dreams but her own reality.
The vicissitudes of Kahlo’s marriage are recorded in many of her paintings. In Frida and Diego Rivera (1931; San Francisco, CA, MOMA) he is presented as the great maestro while she, dressed as usual in a long-skirted Mexican costume, is her husband’s adoring wife and perfect foil. Even at this early date there are hints that Rivera was unpossessable; later portraits show Kahlo’s increasing desire to bind herself to her philandering spouse. The Two Fridas (1939; Mexico City, Mus. A. Mod.), in which her heart is extracted and her identity split, conveys her desperation and loneliness at the time of their divorce in 1939; they remarried in 1940.
Kahlo’s health deteriorated rapidly in her last years, as attested by Self-portrait with the Portrait of Dr Farill (1951; see Herrera, 1983, pl. XXXIV). This depiction of herself sitting bolt upright in a wheelchair, painted after spending a year in hospital undergoing a series of spinal operations, was conceived as a kind of secular ex-voto and given to the doctor whom she has represented as the agent of her salvation.
In 1953 Kahlo’s right leg was amputated at the knee because of gangrene. She turned to drugs and alcohol to relieve her suffering and to Communism for spiritual solace. Several late paintings, such as Marxism Heals the Sick (Mexico City, Mus. Kahlo), show Marx and Stalin as gods; they are painted in a loosely brushed style, her earlier miniaturist precision having been sacrificed to drug addiction. Her last work, a still-life of a watermelon entitled Long Live Life (1954; Mexico City, Mus. Kahlo), is both a salute to life and an acknowledgement of death’s imminence. Eight days before she died, almost certainly by suicide, she wrote her name, the date and the place of execution on the melon’s red pulp, along with the title (‘VIVA LA VIDA’) in large capital letters.
Hayden Herrera
From Grove Art Online © 2009 Oxford University Press
And the little one said !
I have a question for you Dee Dee - was Barty EVER as Delightful as me
Dee Dee tell the truth now !!!
Just who was the most Beautiful Blue Merle Chihuahua Puppy
Wisely Dee Dee chose to say nuthin
Breeze still refuses point blank to be drawn
This group photo has been sitting in my archives for years. Our local island Pub is a gathering place for all types of interesting characters. These are just few. Sadly, the fellow--his name is Sonny-- in the grey patterned sweater has since passed away. He had many fascinating stories of horse racing, both professionally and as a hobby.
Oil on canvas; 300 x 158.5 cm.
Chen Yifei is a central figure in the development of Chinese oil painting and is one of China's most renowned contemporary artists. Although he was denounced for "capitalist behavior" Chen's obvious talent and mastery of oil painting techniques won him recognition by the authorities. Chen soon became one of the leading painters of the Cultural Revolution. He was famous for his big Mao portraits and depiction of grand heroic events of the modern Chinese nation. After the Cultural Revolution, Chen became the forerunner of a new age in Chinese aesthetics, promoting a new sense of modernity and lifestyle in his paintings as well as in fashion, cinema and design. In his oil paintings Chen abandoned his uncritical glorification of the party to blend realistic technique and romanticism with Chinese subject matter, especially melancholic and lonely women in traditional dresses. His characteristic "Romantic Realism" paintings use dark and dense colors and convey a sense of richness and integrity.
In 1980 he became one of the first artists from the People's Republic of China permitted to study art in the United States. Chen Yifei enrolled at Hunter College and later found work as an art restorer. In 1983, before he attained his master's degree at Hunter, his solo exhibition at the Hammer Galleries was a great success. Later, he established as a contract artist for the Hammer Galleries.
Chen returned to China and settled in Shanghai in 1990. He painted Impressionist landscapes of Tibet and his native Zhejiang Province. At the same time, he had also transformed himself into a style entrepreneur, creating fashion brands, decorating hotels and selling high-end clothing and chic home furnishings. He also supervised one of the country's biggest modeling agencies. Some critics said he turned increasingly commercial.
In 2005, while working on a feature film, "Barber," Chen fell ill and died. His early death left intellectual circles in shock and highlighted his major role in the Chinese contemporary art scene.