[Hsü Pei-hungJu Peon] (b Yixing, Jiangsu Province, Jul 19, 1895; d Beijing, Sept 26, 1953). Chinese painter and art educator. The most acclaimed Western-trained artist in modern China, he influenced the development of 20th-century Chinese painting through his role as art teacher and administrator as well as his painting. Xu Beihong studied painting as a child with his father, a village teacher and painter. After his father’s death, Xu moved to Shanghai, the cultural and commercial center of modern China, in 1915 to support his family. There he earned a living by painting popular pictures of beautiful women for Shenmei Shuguan (the Aesthetic Bookstore), a commercial art company founded by Gao Jianfu, and concurrently enrolled as a student in the French department of Zhendan University. In 1916 his painting of Changjie [Cangjie], the legendary inventor of Chinese characters, won first prize at an art contest of Changsheng Mingzhi University in Shanghai, earning him an invitation from the school founder to live at Hardoon Garden. There he became acquainted with prominent artistic and cultural intellectuals such as as ...