Zao Wou Ki was a Chinese-French painter who spent much of his life in Paris. Born in Beijing in 1920, he trained at the School of Art in Hangzhou where he learned brush-and-ink techniques and the traditions of Chinese art history. He did a period of pupilege under renown artist Lin Fengmian, who practiced a hybrid of European modernism and Chinese forms and would eventually become known as a pioneer of modern Chinese painting.