Shang Yang was born in 1942 in Hubei Province, but his familial origins lie in Kaixian, Sichuan Province (now called Kaizhou). He attended the middle and high schools attached to the Hubei Institute of Fine Arts in Wuhan, and then graduated from the art academy in 1965. After working as an editor at the Hubei People’s Publishing House throughout the Cultural Revolution, he returned to the art academy and was awarded a master’s degree in Oil Painting in 1981. He served, briefly, as Vice President of the Hubei Institute of Fine Arts in 1989 before being stripped of his post: he had supported the student activists in the civil unrest leading up to the occupation of Tiananmen Square. Later, in the 1990s, he taught painting at South China Normal University, before accepting a professorship at Capital Normal University in Beijing, where he then became the Director. Trained in Soviet-style Socialist Realism, Shang Yang soon developed his own, stripped-back technique of painting that incorporated unusual combinations of found materials. Shang’s work has been shown in group exhibitions in China, Europe and the United States with solo exhibitions in Suzhou (2013), Beijing (2012, 2009), Chengdu (2006) and New York (2018). Shang Yang lives and works in Beijing.

The White Rabbit Collection is one of the world’s most extensive and significant collections of contemporary art from China. With a focus on works created since the year 2000, the Collection contains almost 3,000 works by over 750 artists and continues to expand. Note that when you click on the link below you will be forwarded to the White Rabbit Collection website.

Explore the work of Shang Yang in the collection database