Yifei Chen Sold at Auction Prices

Painter, b. 1946 - d. 2005

(born 1946 in Ningbo, China; died 2005 in Shanghai, China) Born during the Cultural Revolution, Chen Yifei was trained at the Shanghai College of Art in Socialist Realism, China’s official art style at the time. Early in his career, Chen’s portraits of Chairman Mao and heroic battle scenes gained him notoriety among Chinese party leaders. In 1980, Chen was given permission to study in the United States, where he experienced greater artistic freedom, painting romantic scenes of traditional China and Tibet. These works would bring him to the attention of American industrialist Armand Hammer, whose support would launch Chen to international acclaim when he exhibited his works in a solo exhibition at the Hammer Gallery in New York in 1983. Chen returned to China in 1990, where he embarked on a number of successful commercial ventures, seeking to cultivate the visual arts in China’s growing economy, decorating hotels, launching successful high-end clothing and home furnishing lines, and overseeing one of the largest modeling agencies in China. He also directed motion pictures, including a successful documentary about Jewish refugees in Shanghai before the Cultural Revolution, and it was during the filming of his movie “Barber” that Chen suffered a fatal stomach hemorrhage at the age of 59.