Born in Tianjin in 1959, Li Xiaoxuan is one of the most prominent of the wave of innovators producing what’s called the New Literati Painting (xin wenrenhua) in contemporary China. He graduated from the Chinese Painting Department at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts in 1982. Because of the nude figures in his graduation piece, as a form of punishment, he was assigned to work in a local library. In the same year, his mother passed away. These early disappointments psychologically changed Li’s perception of the world, and he became increasingly interested in the pessimistic works of the Northern European painters Egon Schiele (1890 – 1918) and Edvard Munch (1863 – 1944). Supported by several art professors, Li started to teach Chinese painting at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts in 1985, and continues to teach there. Deeply influenced by German Expressionism, Li is interested in probing people’s psychological state. He has been identified as a “leading figure in China’s contemporary art scene whose works best reflect the emotion and thoughts of the Chinese people.”
