An artist of the people

Ye donated over 5,000 works to the China National Academy of Painting, and the drawings shown at the current exhibition come from this collection.

The exhibition is the second at the academy to show pieces from Ye's donation. The first exhibition was held two years ago.

One of the highlights of the current exhibition is a collection of illustrations Ye drew for Ziye (Midnight), a novel authored in 1933 by Mao Dun, who was not just a novelist, but also an essayist and critic, also from Zhejiang province. The novel depicts the modernity and life of the upper class in metropolitan Shanghai, while exposing a social crisis under the influence of colonialism and capitalism.