Angela Occhipinti displays her paintings and lithography works in Beijing. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Occhipinti was born in Perugia and now lives in Milan. She says she was lucky to have grown up surrounded by people related to art. Her father was in the business of architectural decoration and her mother collected classical paintings. Her uncle was a sculptor who had introduced her to many artists, and she began learning lithography in her teens.

She has worked at several famous studios and with established artists, such as in English painter Stanley William Hayter's studio in Paris and Italian printer Giorgio Upiglio's studio in Milan.

A brief interaction with Pablo Picasso at the Mourlot studio in Paris also influenced her creations for long. The printing studio was where many master artists experimented with lithographic techniques, including Henri Matisse and Joan Miro. Occhipinti visited the studio for the first time as an assistant of her teacher, engraver Giuseppe Viviani.

She was 16 years old when she saw Picasso there who eagerly waited for his lithographs to be printed, "just like a small boy anticipating a gift", she recalls.

During her 20-day stay at the Mourlot studio, she created her own works and also helped prepare acid of varying densities for Picasso to process his etchings.

"I used almost everything in my pocket as painting tools, including coco powder, snacks and eyeliners. Picasso sometimes came to watch me drawing with these daily-use items. When I finished, he would say, 'It doesn't look bad.'"

She likes Picasso's lithographs although they are largely black, white and gray, and it is because the fewer colors one applies, the more difficult it becomes to handle them on a single surface.

At the Beijing exhibition, she's showing a lithograph titled Toro, which she produced in 1960.